Santander (EFE) to be reinforced with divers from the Special Group for Underwater Activities of the Civil Guard (GEAS).
According to the statements of the survivors of the shipwreck, in which two other crew members died, the missing sailor could have been locked inside the fishing boat, which is estimated to be sunk at a depth of 120 meters, making it difficult to reach he.
During last night, a small device was maintained in the area with the Maritime Rescue ship “María de Maetzu” and the hospital ship “Juan de la Cosa”, of the Social Institute of the Navy.
At eight in the morning, as confirmed to EFE by the Government Delegation in Cantabria, all the means have been redeployed, including, in addition to these two vessels, two other helicopters, fishing and merchant, patrol boats and a plane of the Civil Guard and pilot boats.
The GEAS divers from Asturias, who arrived in Santander on Monday afternoon, are expected to submerge throughout the morning of Tuesday and will enter the water to analyze the situation.
The “Vilaboa Uno” sank with ten crew members, seven of whom were rescued by boats that were in the area, after notifying the Maritime Rescue that it had a leak in the hull and was sinking.
With hardly any wind and with the sea “calm girl”
“No one can explain what could have happened,” said the Cantabrian Fisheries Minister, Guillermo Blanco, in statements to EFE, in which he stressed that the sea conditions were good and that the ship was stopped to start fishing. .
In the Santander Fishermen’s Association they do not understand what could have happened either, and they assure EFE that the ship was not fishing and the sea was calm this morning.
However, around 4.10 in the morning on Monday, the Vilaboa Uno, 32 meters long, notified the Maritime Rescue that it had a leak and was sinking.
Half an hour after launching their distress call, two fishing boats reached their companions, six miles off the coast of Santander, and they “didn’t see the boat anymore”, only some gear, two buoys and a beacon balloon.
This has been reported to the media by Antonio Fernández Sanjosé, patron of Siempre Nécora, based in the Cantabrian town of Colindres; Lamine Faye, a fisherman from that boat, and Miguel Ángel Rosales, a crew member of the Ave Fénix, the other Santander fishing boat that came to the scene.
“There was nothing to be seen on the boat”
“You couldn’t see the ship at all”, assured the skipper of the Siempre Nécora, who managed to rescue seven crew members from the Vilaboa, one of them already deceased although they tried to revive him.
Among these seven rescued was the skipper of Vilaboa Uno, but Fernández Sanjosé has indicated that they did not speak, they were all “in shock” and they were only treated to avoid hypothermia.
This pattern does not understand what could have happened, nor does it know if, as some sources point out, it could have been a leak in the hull, but it has assured that the sea was “calm dead” and there was almost no wind or waves.
The Ave Fénix, the second fishing boat that reached Vilaboa at around 3:30 a.m., rescued two other crew members. The ninth crew member was helped by a Santander pilot launch.
The owner of the Vilaboa Uno: “The boat was in perfect condition”
The owner of the Vilaboa Uno, the sunken trawler, has assured EFE that “the boat was in perfect condition” when it went to work yesterday, Sunday night.
Alberto Rentería, in a brief phone call, lamented the death of his two companions and the disappearance of the fisherman who is being searched for in the area of the shipwreck.
“We have no indication of what may have happened. The ship was in perfect condition; I myself have nothing clear about what could have happened ”, he told EFE, a few words that he has also conveyed in his statement to the Civil Guard.
