CAPE MAY — Less than a week after staging a massive search prompted by a distress call that was later labeled a hoax, the Coast Guard launched a search 12 miles off Cape May this morning then called it off when a helicopter crew found no signs that a ship had actually been in trouble.

“A possible hoax is always a concern,” said Petty Officer Nick Ameen, a Coast Guard spokesman based at the guard’s Atlantic City Air Station in Egg Harbor Township.

“Even had last week’s events not happened, we always have a heightened sense,” Ameen said. “It’s not like making a prank call to your local pizza shop.”

Sometime after 11 a.m. today, a radio call went out stating, “Mayday, mayday, is anyone there?” Ameen said.

He said the caller apparently provided information about the location of the vessel, though there were no precise coordinates provided by a GPS divice of any kind.

Ameen said the caller apparently did not provide any information on victims or the name, size or type of vessel involved.

He said a Coast Guard helicopter was sent to the location, but the crew founding nothing and the the search was suspended.

Last Monday, the Coast Guard got a radio distress call saying three people were dead and several others were injured on a vessel called the Blind Date. The call sent some 200 rescue personnel scrambling in the air, on boats and on land to locate the yacht and victims 17½ miles off of Sandy Hook.

No sign of any emergeny was found, and the incident was labelled a hoax.

Officials put the cost of the search at well over $300,000, and have offered a $3,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the caller.