Hopes fading for three missing fishing crew

HOPES were fading last night for three fishermen missing since yesterday morning as coastguards found an object on the seabed.

The men, named locally as skipper David McFarland, 37, crewman Robert Prowse, 23, and Jack Craig, 22, have not been seen or heard from since leaving Weymouth on their 36ft “potter” the Purbeck Isle.

Searches have been under way off the Dorset coast since they were reported missing at around 6pm last night, including help from Royal Navy warships, and today coastguards continued to search a ten-mile area off the coast of Portland Bill using a helicopter and a lifeboat.

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Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesman Fred Caygill said teams are hoping to send down specialist equipment to look at an object, a similar size to that of the Purbeck Isle, discovered on the seabed by a survey ship with sonar equipment.

“We were offered the assistance of the Odyssey Explorer, which is a survey vessel which normally surveys the seabed as part of its commercial work,” he said.

“They were able to use their side scan sonar, which discovered on the seabed at the depth of about 55 metres.

“It is very difficult to identify what that particular object is. We are concentrating on trying to identify this object to either discount it or count it in, as the case may be.”

News of the discovery spread through the community, but Andy Alcock, secretary of the Weymouth and Portland Fisherman and Licensed Boatman Association, said people still had hope of finding the men alive.

“Everybody is very quiet because it’s still search and rescue, but then we’re all hopeful that the liferaft will be found with them in it and everything will be fine and they can go home to their families.

“But obviously the downside is the longer it goes on, the hope fades, so we’d rather something happened sooner rather than later.

“It’s just very, very sad that it could turn out to be a fatal accident.”

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