One dead and 2 missing as boat sinks too fast for SOS

ONE man drowned and two others are missing after a boat carrying four friends sank on a fishing trip yesterday.

A sole survivor was found clinging to a buoy after the boat disappeared in the English channel.

It is believed the vessel, which a local sailor claimed was not seaworthy, went down so quickly that it did not have time to issue a distress call.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is probing potential causes – including a collision with another boat or an on-board explosion. Police said the boat left Shoreham marina in the early hours of yesterday morning.

A 45-year-old Romanian man from London, who had tied himself to a buoy on the side of the five-metre vessel, was pulled out at 6am after he was found by fishermen. He was taken to Worthing hospital in West Sussex, where he was stable last night, recovering from hypo-

thermia. A second man was pronounced dead after being pulled from the sea six miles offshore at 8.30am. Two of the men are related, but police have not released further details. John Pepper, skipper of Seaful, which is also moored at Shoreham harbour, said the boat was called James 2. He claimed: ‘There’s no way that boat was equipped to be out there. It’s a river boat, not for the sea. The weather was no good for going out either.’

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency and Royal National Lifeboat Institution last night suspended their searches for the other two men. A spokesman for the agency said: ‘There was no distress call, no one raised the alarm until the chap was found this morning’.

Sussex Police had last joined the investigating with the Marine Accident Investigation Branch.

‘No way boat was equipped for sea’