A trawler skipper and close friend of missing Kinsale fisherman Ger Bohan has accused the Naval Service of failing to properly monitor a signalling system which would have alerted them much earlier to the disappearance of Mr Bohan's boat.
John Walsh, skipper of the Rachel J which had been fishing with the Honeydew II, questioned why the Naval Service's vessel monitoring system (VMS) failed to pick up that the Honeydew II had disappeared in the early hours of January 12th.
Skipper Ger Bohan and Polish crewman Tomasz Jagla were both lost when the ship went down off Mine Head in Co Waterford while Lithuanian crewmen, Viktor Losev and Vladamir Kostyr were rescued after spending 20 hours adrift in a life raft in stormy seas.
But a search operation for the Honeydew II was only launched about 6pm on January 12th when Mr Walsh and Mr Bohan's wife Mary became concerned after they had not heard from him throughout the day.
Mr Walsh explained that the VMS sends out a signal from a trawler every two hours stating its position, course and speed and the last such transmission from the trawler was when it was six miles off Mine Head at 11.36pm on January 11th.
"It was due to send its next signal again at 1.36am on January 12th and then at 3.36am and so on, but its failure to send these signals were not noticed by the Naval Service monitoring the VMS at Haulbowline," he said.
"And this was on a night when it was blowing gale force 9 or 10 and just hours after one trawler had gone down - I don't know how they failed to notice that the Honeydew had stopped sending its VMS signal," he said.
Mr Walsh, who was the last person to have radio contact with Mr Bohan when he spoke to him over the radio at 11.55pm on January 11th, is baffled why the Naval Service in Haulbowline did not pick up on the trawler's difficulty.
"They missed eight broadcasts [which should have come from the Honeydew II] and no call was made by the Naval Service [to the Honeydew II] and that's just not good enough - it's a disgrace.
"If they had spotted at 1.36am or at 3.36am that the Honeydew wasn't sending a VMS signal, the alarm could have been raised and I could have been at the scene of her last transmission by first light," Mr Walsh said.
"I'm not saying that it would have changed the outcome, but it would have meant that the two Lithuanian lads wouldn't have had to spend 20 hours in a life raft and we would have a far better idea from the trail of debris where the Honeydew went down.
"Ger is my best friend and all his wife Mary is asking is that he be brought home to her, that's all she's asking for and God knows it isn't a lot," said Mr Walsh who has spent the last five days aboard his boat, the Rachel J, searching for Mr Bohan.
A Naval Service spokesman said the VMS was introduced under EU regulations to monitor fishing activity in EU waters and was never intended as an emergency service for trawlers.
The Defence Forces Press Office issued a statement yesterday in response to Mr Walsh's criticisms in which it said the circumstances surrounding the sinking of both the Honeydew II and Pere Charles are currently the subject of an investigation by the Department of Transport's marine casualty investigation board.
"Accordingly it would be inappropriate for the Defence Forces to comment on any part of the these investigations at this time. LE Eithne and Naval Service divers remain ready to assist the Coast Guard in the ongoing operation as required."