Hope fades for boat trio
THE family and friends of three boaties lost at sea are becoming increasingly desperate for news as they hope a day trip off the North-West coast has not turned to tragedy.
An extensive air and sea search as of Monday night failed to find the 17ft Caribbean half cab vessel or any clues to where it is.
The group of friends - Isaiah Dixon, of Wynyard, Thomas Courto, of Ulverstone and Bree-Anna Thomas, of Wynyard - left for a day out in the boat from Wynyard Yacht Club boat ramp on Monday morning.
THE family and friends of three boaties lost at sea are becoming increasingly desperate for news as they hope a day trip out on the water has not turned to tragedy.
An extensive air and sea search has so far failed to find the 5m Caribbean half-cab vessel or any clues to where it is.
The group of friends – Isaiah Dixon, of Wynyard, Thomas Courto, of Ulverstone, and BreeAnna Thomas, of Wynyard – left for a day out in the boat from Wynyard Yacht Club boat ramp on Monday morning.
The vehicle used to launch the vessel, which belongs to Mr Dixon’s father, is in the carpark.
A big group of family and friends crammed the area on Tuesday as they waited for news from rescue personnel and locals who took their boats out to join the search.
Inspector Steve Jones said Tasmania Police was advised the vessel was overdue from its day trip at 5.30pm on Monday.
“Multiple police vessels, two Westpac rescue helicopters and a rotary aircraft and Challenger jet from Victoria provided by AMSA, are searching an area of around 1400sq km covering the North West Coast,” Insp Jones said.
“A group of friends went out for
a day trip in nice weather. Waters were calm but picked up midafternoon. We have searched from Devonport to Table Cape and to Three Hummock Island.”
He said it was a difficult time for the families of the three people on board and searchers were doing everything they could to find them.
The vessel was seen anchored at Boat Harbour about noon. The three missing boaties were sitting
on the beach. The vessel then headed towards Table Cape.
There has been no signal from any of their mobile phones for many hours and no EPIRB has been activated.
About lunchtime on Tuesday, Tasmanian surf lifesavers were advised to return to shore as search conditions deteriorated.
Surf Life Saving Tasmania coordinator Boyd Griggs said the focus would now shift to searching the coast from the air until seas calmed down.
“It’s getting to the point of being dangerous out there,” Mr Griggs said.
SLST had 23 people from Burnie, Penguin, Boat Harbour and Somerset clubs searching water between Penguin to west of Rocky Cape.
“We have found nothing and time is going by,” Mr Griggs said.
“But on the upside, if the boat had gone down we would expect to find debris so that could be a good sign.”
Wynyard Marine Rescue unit commander Auston Rotheram was out Tuesday morning covering the area between Sisters Beach and Boat Harbour.
“We did not find any sign of them or the vessel. It started to cut up from the east and got too rough for small boats,” Mr Rotheram said.