As the search continues for three missing fishermen who reportedly sank along with their seabob trawler six days ago, Director of Maritime Safety, Captain John Flores said the search team was expected to search a ‘missed’ area where the vessel likely went down.
Captain Flores said the search would have expanded about 8 miles from the point that the vessel went down, but on Friday the team was tasked with carefully searching a two-mile area.
“We put out a two-mile radius that we really want them to examine because I think we would have missed it in the earlier searches and they will concentrate on the two-mile square and we think it is the most likely area it would have gone down, if we cannot find it there, we are going to expand again,” Captain Flores told the News Room.
Three fishermen- Captain Harold Damon, Winston Sam and Ronald Burton- have been missing since Saturday last when the Noble House Seafoods trawler they were travelling on reportedly sank near in the Mahaica River, offshore Guyana.
The trio alongside another seaman, Vincent Dazzell, was working aboard the vessel. Dazzell was rescued by another vessel but the others were not so lucky.
Captain Flores explained that three vessels have been deployed to search for the missing men. Two trawlers that are dredging the bottom of the river and a special boat with sonar to scan the river are currently offshore.
The two trawlers hit something at the bottom twice but hopeful divers went down and it was not the missing vessel, Captain Flores revealed.
On day one of the search, the last known position of the vessel that showed up on the MARAD vessel monitoring screen was searched; on day two the area where Dazzell was rescued was searched and on day three the team was hopeful after the found the men’s fishing net.
Based on accounts from Dazzell, the vessel sank about 26 miles from the Mahaica River. But, search efforts conducted over the past few days in this area proved futile.
A multi-agency Board of Inquiry has been set up to investigate the incident. Expected distress signals, MARAD’s Director-General Stephen Thomas said previously, were not issued and it is unclear why Noble House Seafoods did not immediately report that the men were in distress when they radioed for assistance.
