Fisherman planned on moving crab pots which saved women in Galway

Ellen Glynn, 17, with her parents Jonny and Deirdre. She survived 15 hours in the freezing water of  Galway Bay with her cousin Sara Feeney last week.Picture: Hany Marzouk

Aran island fisherman Bertie Donohue has said he is “amazed” at the resilience of the two young Galway women who survived a 15-hour ordeal at sea by clinging to his fishing gear.

“They are two very tough, very brave girls — and I don’t know how they managed to hold on to my fishing gear in that location,” said the crab fisherman from Cill Éinne on Inis Mór.

When he heard Sara Feeney, 23, and Ellen Glynn, 17, had secured themselves to floats off Inis Oírr after being carried across the bay last Wednesday night, he knew immediately it was his crab gear.

Bertie, who processes brown crab on Inis Mór, said he had planned to move the gear early last week, but “something stopped him”.

“That was one of three sets of pots that I laid off 'The Finish', some two-miles south-west of Inis Oírr, but it was the outer set of gear,” he said.

“If they had missed it, they would be out in the Atlantic,” he said.

Bertie said that “what had happened to those two girls could happen to any of us”.

He said their own ability to keep calm had been key to their survival — along with their rescue by fishermen Patrick and Morgan Oliver of Galway RNLI.

When the two exhausted women fully realised their location after fog lifted last Thursday morning, the Cliffs of Moher were just south of them and the wide Atlantic just west.

The 20-knot north-easterly wind had carried them diagonally across Galway Bay towards Black Head, during a night of heavy rain and lightning.

Sara Feeney joins landing at the Galway Hospital after a malty sea rescue operation.

Wearing only buoyancy aids over their swim togs, they tried to paddle up to Inis Oirr with the wind still against them.

It was at that point that they spotted the floats and grabbed hold of the gear, securing the sling through the webbing on the boards.

They had already wisely lashed the two boards together when they were carried away from Furbo beach by the offshore wind.

“I don’t know how they survived that night as there was awful weather, and that north-easterly is cold and makes a very bad chop in the sea when you are away from shore,” said Bertie.

That is a very exposed location, and I only set the gear there to help another fisherman, who lost 200 pots last October when his boat sank in Inis Oírr.

“And that man's boat sank in a north-easterly, the same wind those girls had, which just shows you how tough that weather is."

Bertie lifted the pots at the weekend, and said there was a good catch of crab.

The two women and their families, from Knocknacarra, Galway, have paid tribute to all those who participated in the search and rescue, and have said they cannot thank the Olivers enough.

Three Irish Coast Guard helicopters, RNLI Aran, and Galway lifeboats, Doolin and Costello Bay gardaí, the Civil Defence, local fishing and leisure craft, along with Galway Flying Club, Aer Arann, and many volunteers had participated, and it was co-ordinated by Valentia Marine Rescue Sub-Centre.

Former Irish Coast Guard search and rescue pilot Dave Courtney, author of the memoir Nine Lives, said questions need to be asked as to why the rescue took so long.

The Irish Coast Guard has said the search for the two women covered a 200sq mile sea area using SARMAP, the US software used effectively by Valentia Coast Guard in 2011 to track the probable location of the crew of the yacht Rambler which capsized in the Fastnet yacht race off West Cork.