I swam for 4hrs after boat was hit.. We had no time to call for help

Survivor tells of fatal fishing disaster

A FISHERMAN has told how he swam for four hours clinging to a buoy after his boat was hit by another vessel 10 miles out at sea.

Elvis Cojocariu, whose three pals died in the tragedy, said: “We just had to swim towards the lights. I just kept thinking about not dying.”

Elvis, 45, had gone night-fishing for mackerel with three friends on Saturday.

Their boat, the James 2, was clipped by a much bigger vessel in the early hours of Sunday, hurling all four men into the water of the Channel.

Elvis, from London, added: “There was no time to call for help. It all happened in about two minutes. I was trying to swim to the shore but the current was pushing me parallel to the coast.”

He was rescued four hours later, just before 6am on Sunday, when another boat spotted him still a mile from shore.

The alarm was raised and an eighthour search and rescue bid was launched by the coastguard to find his missing friends. The body of one man was recovered from the sea hours later and brought ashore by helicopter.

But efforts to find the boat’s owner, dad-of-four Mitch Ilie, from Brighton, East Sussex, and his brother-in-law Irinez Popovici, were later abandoned, with the two men presumed dead. Mitch, originally from Romania, owned a bike repair shop in Brighton. Fatherof-three Irinez also lived in the city.

Elvis said of the moments after the collision: “Mitch was screaming for help and me and Irinez started swimming to the shore.

“But he started panicking because he couldn’t swim. After 25 minutes I couldn’t hear him any more.”

The group, who had set out from the harbour at Shoreham-by-sea, West Sussex, had been night-fishing close to the Rampion offshore wind farm when their boat was hit.

Sussex Police are still working to identify the vessel involved in the accident.