Crew flee burning fishing trawler

A TENDER hug from his schoolboy son welcomed home trawler owner and skipper Billy Newman yesterday afternoon, seven hours after he and his crew fled a burning boat 20 miles off the south-west coast.

Mr Newman’s wife Frances and sons, Gerard, 21, and Shane, 13, were at the pier-side in Union Hall for a family reunion.

The family requested privacy and the skipper declined to speak about his ordeal that led, yesterday, to the 18-metre wooden vessel Pod San Yann sinking off the Seven Heads.