Search continues for missing rower

The family of a 62-year-old American rower missing in the Atlantic Ocean are today continuing a privately-funded search off the west coast of Ireland.

Retired heart specialist Nenad Belic was last heard from 400 miles off the coast of Ireland a week ago.

A distress signal was picked up 210 miles west of Bantry Bay last Sunday sparking a major search.

But despite the work of Irish and British coastguard helicopters and fixed wing aircraft there was no sign of the rower or his 21ft boat, the Lun.

Other craft in the area joined the search, but to no avail and the operation was called off.

His son Adrian, 32, chartered a British-based light aircraft yesterday and began to search off the Galway coast.

He said he ‘‘clung to the hope’’ that his father had survived and that his boat might be drifting, as no wreckage had been found.

The boat, which Mr Belic made himself was ‘‘unsinkable’’, he said. And he added that his father had no problems on the voyage other than an electrical fault.

Adrian Belic hopes the previous searches have simply missed his father and said the family would do everything in their power to try to find him.

‘‘We are going back out because I think he is still alive. No one has spotted any debris of the craft, it was built to withstand waves far larger than there were last weekend,’’ he said.

He added: ‘‘He is so close, we cannot give up.’’

Mr Belic set out from Cape Cod on May 11.

The search is expected to last until tomorrow.