Prayers said as search for sunken trawlers continues

The coastal communities devastated after two trawlers sank without trace off southern Ireland united in prayer today as the search continued for a second day.

Mass-goers in the village of Dunmore East, Co Waterford, which was home to five drowned fishermen, gathered at church as locals in Kinsale, Co Cork, prayed for the skipper and Polish crewman from the Honey Dew II.

Lifeboat crews are co-ordinating the search for the wreck of the Pere Charles in a bid to locate the bodies of the five crewmen.

Two inflated life rafts from the trawler were recovered yesterday with no sign of the men, and Coastguard staff suggested they may have had no time to get out of the boat’s cabin as the vessel sank in seconds.

Naval ship the LE Emer is in charge of the search for the Honey Dew II.

Despite two of the four-man crew surviving in a life raft for almost 20 hours, hopes of finding skipper and father-of-three Ger Bohan and his Polish crewman alive are fading.

Even though searches for the Honey Dew II continued throughout the night, Irish Navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Terry Ward said no trace of the trawler had been found.

Father Brian Power, Parish Priest in Dunmore East, said prayers had been said for the men at morning Mass and services would be offered over the weekend.

“Prayers were offered for the missing men and for the other two lads that are missing as well,” he said.

“People are just shocked and traumatised. There’s no words that can explain the disbelief in the area. It’s an awful tragedy.

“They (the families) are suffering and grieving and need their own space to try to come to terms with their loss.”

In Kinsale, Parish Priest Canon John O’Mahony, who married Mr Bohan and his wife Mary, said they hoped to hold an ecumenical service later for the missing men.

More than 100 volunteers have joined a coastline search in the hope of finding wreckage or oil slicks which may indicate where the wreck of the Pere Charles is lying.

The two crewmen who survived the Honey Dew II sinking have been named locally as Lithuanian Viktor Losev, 46, and Vladimir Koster, 47.