Sad Search & Recovery situation.

[prairie tuber]

Early Tuesday morning a 12 meter commercial fishing boat with a crew of 3 capsized in the North basin of Lake Winnipeg. Two of the crew were able to swim to a yawl that was being towed behind the main boat, but the captain is still missing. The prospects of a rescue are very slim at this point. Two friends of mine who are with the Canadian Coast Guard based in Gimli, are currently searching in a 17 m cutter. Apparently the sea state has been brutal over the past 2 days with wave height averages of 3 meters that are very closely spaced together.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/loc...-4883907c.html


http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/st...ng-boater.html

[codprawn]

I bet the water isn't exactly warm either - terrible for all concerned.

[TubrOnCrakberry]

Originally Posted by codprawn

I bet the water isn't exactly warm either - terrible for all concerned.

Not warm at all. They weren't actually fishing, but doing end of season bouey removal which gets contracted out to them by the provincial gov't. Apparently the boat lost all engine power and they were adrift for 13 hours before the boat capsized. They were more than 10 or so Km from the nearest shore when they lost power.

Ican only guess they figured they'd be safer drifting in the bigger boat awaiting help or waiting out the winds than using the smaller yawl in the conditions.

[codprawn]

If conditions were that bad and they had broken down why didn't they put out a Mayday or at least a pan pan? I am a fine one to talk as I also believe in "only as a last resort" but after 13hrs..................

[TubrOnCrakberry]

Good question. The information that has been released so far has been quite limited. I don't know if they even had a VHF on board,or if the distress call was put out by the base community because they were overdue. One of the reports stated that none of them were even wearing lifejackets, (much less floatation suits).