Nenad search status - Wed Oct 3 2001

• Adrian has gone twice out with a smaller plane (with one refueling inbetween). The plane scans 1 mi wide strip at a go.
• Irish Coast Guard is sceptical about today's search, they say that even though their planes fly higher, they have a better chance of spotting a person because of their infrared gear.
• No sign of Lun and/or Nenad so far. However, Adrian was impressed by visibility - looking from the plane one could even see seagulls above surface, and he saw the lifeboat that was dropped by the beacon the first day, moving in the direction predicted by the rowing oceanographer.
• The actual location of the boat might be much further downwind than estimated by the Coast Guard, as their experience is based on sailboats which have keels and much more drag - several rowers have been hard to rescue in the past, as the light rowing boat can move much faster in the wind than otehr boats.
• All boats along the coast from tip of Ireland down to England are on alert.

Nenad search tomorrow - Thu Oct 4 2001:

• A small flottila of fishing boats will go into the area selected by the oceanographer - stream and wind would have brought Nenad closer to the coast by now - for the final search attempt.
• There will be also one more Coast Guard search attempt (Cesna 404?) By the evening the weather will become too bad again for further search.

Comments

• Oceanographer says the waves might have been 30 feet (60 feet face from tip to the trough). She has not been able to determine whether they were swells, or breaking waves (which could destroy the boat).
• Boat builder is still confident that the boat did not break. It has built in flotation (a piece of styrofoam at the nose, wood has boyancy, even with all the load it should not sink). So not having found any traces of gear from the boat or pieces of the boat might be a good sign.
• Instructions for the use of the beacon Nenad had: beacon should be tied 20 feet from the boat (keeping in the boat weakens the signal), so it was not attached to his lifewest. The string can break, and has broken for other people. Beacon can not be activated automatically or accidentaly - that means that Nenad was conscious when he manually activated it and ejected it from the boat.
• One GPS got waterlogged and broken early on ther trip; satelite email system was also threatened by the previous storm, so he had to repack it in a safer spot on the boat. It is entirely conceivable that all his communication systems could be knocked out by a storm.
• Last time Nenad talked to Roko (Sep 27 2001) he said that he had radioed Coast Guard and requested a food drop. They refused, and told him that their job is to come in and rescue him were he to request a rescue.
  
  Roko, Sara and Predrag