Diving operation for crew of 'Pere Charles' called off

Diving operations around the sunken trawler Pere Charles, which sunk off the coast of Dunmore East, Co Waterford, on January 10th, were called off yesterday.

The Department of Transport confirmed that Irish Coast Guard officials met with the families of the missing fisherman from the Pere Charleson Saturday night to brief them on the situation. A spokeswoman for the department said divers had carried out an extensive search of the trawler and its environs in recent days.

Shoreline searches will continue until later this week.

It was hoped that the bodies of skipper Tom Hennessy, his uncle Pat Hennessy, Pat Coady, Billy O'Connor and Andriy Dyrin from Ukraine would still be on board the steel-hulled trawler but repeated searches have proved fruitless.

Meanwhile, coast guards backed by local volunteers continued the search of the shoreline near the Honeydew IIyesterday. The teams covered the Waterford/Wexford coast from Ardmore to Carnsore.

Father-of-four Ger Bohan and his crewman, father-of-two Tomasz Jagla from Poland, have been missing since the Honeydew IIwent down somewhere off Mine Head in west Waterford after being hit by a 15-metre-high wave on January 11th last. The tragedy occurred within hours of the sinking of the Pere Charles.

Garda divers searched sections of the Honeydew II, which lies off the Waterford coast, including the wheelhouse and the galley areas last week but they too found nothing. Dives are expected to resume this morning at about 7am to examine the hold and bow area of the trawler. The coast guard has notified its British counterpart to be on the lookout for the bodies of the lost fishermen.