Identifying correct participle usage

Hi Fatmanur, let's solve this multiple-choice English grammar question together! It focuses on participles and clause reduction.

Let's look at the first part of the sentence: blank space, for over an hour, the lifeboat men finally spotted the small rubber boat.

Notice the phrase 'for over an hour'. This indicates a duration that happened before the main action of spotting the boat.

When one action is completed before another starts, we use the perfect participle, which is 'having' plus the past participle of the verb.

So, for the first blank, 'Having searched' fits perfectly because the searching happened first and lasted for over an hour.

Now, let's look at the options. Option A starts with 'Having searched', which matches our finding. Options B and C use present or passive forms, and D and E use infinitives, which don't fit the context of a completed prior action.