Sea and land searches on hold over poor weather
A week after the Kinsale-based trawler was smashed by a giant wave about six miles south of Mine Head, dozens of volunteers searched a 70-mile stretch of coastline between Bunmahon and Carnsore Point yesterday morning. The search was scaled back in the afternoon.
The families of the missing fishermen, Ger Bohan and Polish native, Tomasz Jagla, were being kept informed of developments throughout the day.
Atrocious weather, including very high winds forecast for today, will prevent full-scale shore searches from taking place until tomorrow.
The sea search for the lost trawler, focused on a 30-square mile zone off Mine Head, is not expected to resume until at least next Tuesday.
A bitterly cold wind whipped ashore yesterday as eight coast guard teams in jeeps and on quad bikes, backed by almost 60 volunteers, began walking beaches and cliffs at 9am.
Wrapped up in warm jackets and hats, the teams spread out along the coastline and looked out on a swollen grey sea for any sign of debris which may have been washed up.
Some debris, including fishing boxes, gloves and cylinders believed to be from the Honeydew II, were recovered from the sea around Carnsore Point and Tramore.
The items were brought back to the Dunmore East coast guard station.
The shore searches were also scaled down yesterday afternoon, with teams out for just an hour, between 2pm and 3pm, as the weather closed in.
Among them were coast guard members Damian Carty, Roy Murphy and Michael Quinn who were joined by Brian Murphy and Albert O’Neill from Kinsale, friends of Honeydew II skipper, Ger Bohan, for a search of Fourknot Beach, known locally as Creaden Beach.
The men walked the remote and deserted beach, littered with storm debris, and headed up the cliff toward Creaden Head.
They had nothing to report when they returned to the coast guard station in Dunmore East just after 3.30pm.
Albert said dozens of people from Kinsale had volunteered to search.
Coast guard incident manager Chris Reynolds said bad weather today would make it unsafe for shore searches involving volunteers.
In another incident yesterday, the Arranmore Lifeboat was called out to tow a trawler, the Catherine R, safely to Arranmore Island.
The 27-metre steel trawler, with eight crew on board, called for help yesterday morning when its ropes got caught in its propellers, 29km off the Co Donegal coast.
