The body of a man has been recovered, and a search is under way for a second man after a fishing vessel went on the rocks off the Donegal coast this morning.
The Malin Head Coast Guard deployed at 10.44am when another fishing vessel in the area raised the alarm. The boat sank off Glengad, roughly 10km east of Malin Head, with the two men on board.
The body of Edward “Liza” Doherty (65) was recovered, while the Coast Guard said efforts to find Robert “Jackie” McLaughlin (41) would begin again at first light.
Both men were from the Malin area and had been on the crab boat The Jennifer, which appeared to capsize. Wreckage of the small vessel was found less than a mile offshore from Glengad with ropes, pots and cables badly tangled.
The uncle and nephew, both experienced at fishing for crab and lobster and trawling, had worked together for the last couple of years.
Charlie O’Donnell, of the Malin Head Fishermen’s Co-Op, said the pair had gone out in the morning to check pots a short distance from shore. “Eddie had sort of retired from fishing - it was more of a hobby, more of a pastime,” he said. “The normal thing would have been for him to fish from June to September. He would normally be finished by now.”
Mr Doherty, a married man with several grown-up children, had a bigger boat that another skipper was fishing for him out of Glengad.
Mr McLaughlin, a single man, had joined him on the small crab vessel over the last few seasons. “Everybody is badly shocked by it all. They were both very well known,” Mr O’Donnell said.
The alarm was raised when debris was spotted in the sea just over a mile from Glengad Head by another fisherman. Malin Head Coast Guard said Mr Doherty’s body was recovered from the sea 14 minutes later.
The wreckage of the fishing boat was later located underwater and searched by a team of divers. Initial reports suggest the vessel - which was tonight being towed ashore - was not badly damaged.
A major search operation was carried out by the search and rescue helicopter out of Sligo, the Lough Swilly and Portrush lifeboats and local fishing boats until nightfall.
The Coast Guard warned weather conditions were also beginning to hamper the search, with stormy force-seven winds.
Mr O’Donnell said conditions at the time the accident happened did not appear to be too treacherous. “It was a southerly wind but there was a reasonable amount of shelter. They weren’t too far out,” he said.
Additional reporting PA