KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Rel­a­tives of miss­ing fish­er­man Shan­non Mo­hammed con­tin­ue to cling to hope that he and five oth­er crew mem­bers aboard the MV St Vin­cent VII are still alive some­where in the At­lantic Ocean.

Ves­sel own­er Reni­ta En­ter­pris­es Ltd yes­ter­day re­leased the first de­tailed ac­count of the crew’s last known com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­fore con­tact with the fish­ing ves­sel was lost fol­low­ing an ap­par­ent on­board fire.

The com­pa­ny said the 22-me­tre ves­sel re­mains miss­ing, with an in­ter­na­tion­al search and res­cue op­er­a­tion con­tin­u­ing more than a week af­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tions were lost.

In its state­ment, Reni­ta En­ter­pris­es said the ves­sel’s elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered track­er trans­mit­ted its last record­ed po­si­tion at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6.18 am on Ju­ly 13, about 200 nau­ti­cal miles off the coast of French Guiana. About 30 min­utes lat­er, the ves­sel’s mas­ter trans­mit­ted a 17-sec­ond What­sApp video to the com­pa­ny’s des­ig­nat­ed con­tact.

“The video ap­peared to show a fire on board the ves­sel. Smoke was ob­served em­a­nat­ing from the area of the ves­sel’s toi­let, which is sit­u­at­ed im­me­di­ate­ly be­hind the wall of the sleep­ing quar­ters/ac­com­mo­da­tion area, and flames were vis­i­ble with­in the ac­com­mo­da­tion. The ex­act ori­gin and cause of the fire re­main un­known and will be in­ves­ti­gat­ed,” the com­pa­ny said.

Af­ter re­ceiv­ing the video, Reni­ta En­ter­pris­es said it at­tempt­ed to re-es­tab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the mas­ter and the ves­sel us­ing all avail­able means, but those ef­forts were un­suc­cess­ful.

The com­pa­ny said the in­ci­dent was im­me­di­ate­ly re­port­ed to the T&T Coast Guard, which ad­vised that be­cause of the ves­sel’s last known lo­ca­tion, the mat­ter should be re­port­ed with­in the Mar­itime Res­cue Re­gion of French Guiana. Reni­ta En­ter­pris­es said it then con­tact­ed the French Guiana Coast Guard and Mar­itime Res­cue Co­or­di­na­tion Cen­tre, which no­ti­fied neigh­bour­ing Coast Guard and mar­itime res­cue au­thor­i­ties.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, ex­ten­sive sea and aer­i­al search­es have since been con­duct­ed, but the lat­est up­date from the French Guiana Coast Guard in­di­cat­ed that no trace of the ves­sel or its crew had been found.

The com­pa­ny said mar­itime safe­ty broad­casts will con­tin­ue un­til Sun­day, re­quest­ing ves­sels op­er­at­ing with­in an ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200-nau­ti­cal-mile ra­dius of the ves­sel’s last record­ed po­si­tion to im­me­di­ate­ly re­port any sight­ing of the ves­sel, de­bris, sur­vival equip­ment or per­sons in the wa­ter.

The St Vin­cent VII left Ch­aguara­mas on Ju­ly 6 on a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion with a six-man crew com­pris­ing a Guyanese mas­ter, four T&T na­tion­als in­clud­ing Mo­hammed, and one Vin­cent­ian na­tion­al.

At Mo­hammed’s Clax­ton Bay home yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives said they had re­ceived lit­tle di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the com­pa­ny since the ves­sel dis­ap­peared. They al­so dis­agreed that some emer­gency con­tact in­for­ma­tion for crew mem­bers had been in­com­plete or in­ac­cu­rate be­fore fam­i­lies could be no­ti­fied.

De­spite the pass­ing days and the ab­sence of any con­firmed sight­ings, Mo­hammed’s rel­a­tives said they con­tin­ue to be­lieve the six men may still be alive, pos­si­bly adrift at sea or await­ing res­cue.