Hit and run on the High seas?

09:00 - 20 January 2004

Tragedy trawler '"was in massive collision with ship"

A prosecutor in Brittany claimed last night that underwater pictures of the sunken French trawler Bugaled Breizh, lost off the Cornwall Coasts, have shown that the vessel and her five crew were probably victims of a high seas "hit and run".

Roland Eisch revealed at a press conference that photos showed evidence of an "extremely violent impact on the vessel's starboard bow, consistent with a ramming by a large and powerful vessel of the container ship type, which caused the trawler to sink extremely rapidly".

The Bugaled Breizh sank 14 miles off The Lizard in Cornwall last Thursday. There were large-scale military exercises going on in the area at the time, but initial speculation that it had been hit by a submarine was denied by the Royal Navy.

Mr Eisch said:

"On impact, the vessel rose up and took in water from the stern, causing the rapid sinking.

A certain number of scrape marks on the vessel's starboard stern show that the ramming vessel disengaged rapidly and left the scene.

The theory that the accident was caused by the boat's trawl fouling on the seabed has been ruled out because pictures showed that the trawl was not caught on any object on the seabed."

The video pictures on which the statement is based were relayed to Brest-based minesweeper Andromede via a remote-controlled submarine which made four dives. The trawler is lying in ninety metres - almost 300 feet - of water.

Mr Eisch said investigators would pursue inquiries into "involuntary homicide by deliberately neglecting to obey legal safety laws" under French law.

Mr Eisch said it was unlikely that the vessel which rammed the Bugaled Breizh was French-registered. "If it is a foreign vessel, an international warrant will be issued to investigators, together with a request for extradition once the guilty party is traced," he said.

French marine police will check shipping movement registers to establish which ships were in the area where the Breton trawler was sunk.

At the press conference, Maritime Affairs director Wenceslas Garapin added that the sea area off the Lizard "is heavily frequented by large container ships and merchant vessels bound for the US".

The last words of the mate of the Bugaled Breizh were: "Come quickly. We are sinking."

Mr Eisch said that while the trawler sank in an area where multi-national military exercises were taking place, the locations of all warships involved had been determined and they could not have been responsible.

He said the only conclusion was that the damage was done by a commercial vessel.

A judicial inquiry aimed at trying to trace the ship will be launched by the French on Thursday.

As part of that inquiry the trawler may now be brought up from the sea bed.

The Bugaled Breizh, which means "child of Brittany" in Breton, was based at the small port of Loctudy, a community now in mourning for the five lost seamen. The bodies of skipper Yves Gloaguen, 45, from Finistère, and Pascal Le Floch, 49, from Morbihan, were recovered on Thursday.

Relatives of the deceased, who have travelled to Cornwall, are this week due to make the official identification. Three others, Patrick Gloaguen, 35, Éric Guillamet, 42, and Georges Le Métayer, 50, all from western Finistère, are still missing.

All five were said to have been experienced seamen. Their trawler was a well-known visitor to Newlyn, where it had been sheltering from bad weather before Thursday.

By cmorgan [at] westernmorningnews.co.uk

(voir le site) of "This is Cornwall"