Wreck dive fails to find missing fishermen

A MAJOR search will continue off the west Cork coast over the weekend for three missing fishermen after an examination of the wreck of their sunken trawler yesterday failed to find any trace of the men.

A Naval Service and Garda dive team spent some 2¼ hours searching through the wreck of the Tit Bonhomme near Adam Island at the mouth of Glandore harbour yesterday without success.

Skipper of the Tit Bonhomme, Michael Hayes, a 52-year-old father-of-five from Helvick Head in Co Waterford, and his Egyptian crewmen Wael Mohamed (35) and Said Mohamed (23) are still missing after the trawler sank on Sunday morning.

Yesterday, Gerard O’Flynn of the Irish Coast Guard said that the dive teams would concentrate their search today in the vicinity of the wreck, having entered and investigated the wreck yesterday afternoon.

“We always identify a number of areas for priority investigation, including the wreck, but the wreck required particularly favourable weather conditions, and when we got those the dive teams focused on the wreck,” said Mr O’Flynn.

“But we always had two other areas which we felt could be equally significant but which didn’t need quite the same weather conditions, so the dive teams will now focus and examine those areas [today] and on Sunday.”

The weather forecast remains favourable for diving near the wreck over the weekend as although the wind is set to freshen it will remain west-northwesterly, which means the prevailing wind will be broken by the western headland of Glandore harbour.

Mr O’Flynn explained that such a wind direction effectively meant that swells in the lee of the headland remained reduced, and given that the divers would not have to enter the wreck, they would be able to search the remaining areas near the sunken trawler.

It emerged yesterday that Tit Bonhomme’s aluminium wheelhouse had sheared off in the rough seas that had battered the 21m steel-hulled trawler for the first three days after it went aground on Adam Island.

Gardaí will put a major traffic plan in operation at Rosscarbery and Leap today as they expect huge numbers of volunteers to descend on Union Hall to assist with the search over the weekend.