Search parties yesterday recovered a door from the sunken MV Crissan-V as they scoured the Waini Coast, in the North West District (NWD), for two crewmen who are still missing.
There was no sign yesterday of Julian Garraway, 26, of Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara (WCD) and the captain and owner of the vessel, John Vansluytman, said to be in his early 60s.
Over the weekend, two other crewmen, 24-year old Egbert Jack Jr and 17-year-old Deochand Massidas, who had been feared dead, were rescued alive in the Waini area.
Garraway’s brother, Trevor Garraway, told Stabroek News yesterday that he and residents of the Pomeroon River left the area around 6 am yesterday in search of his brother and Vansluytman. He said they scoured the coastline heading north and the search party recovered one of the vessel’s doors in the vicinity of the Kamwatta Beach. Garraway said he remains hopeful that his brother will be found. “We coming back tomorrow ’cause he gat fa deh somewhere,” the man said, while adding that the search party spent close to 10 hours on the rough waters outside the Waini Coast yesterday.
Garraway yesterday also denied official reports that there was a 16-hour delay between the sinking of the vessel and when maritime authorities were informed of the incident. He said the search party had informed the police at Parika, on the East Bank Essequibo, less than three hours after the ship went down. “Long before what the Transport Ministry saying… and we left here [Pomeroon] at midnight on the night and Marlon [Fredericks] made a report at Parika the same night before he leff there with a boat and join we,” he said, adding that the men were angry that the coastguard officials at the Pomeroon moored their vessel at the mouth of the river, “while is we who deh searching for the men all the time.”
The Maritime Administra-tion Department (MARAD) is continuing to monitor the situation and an official noted yesterday that the facts relating to the incident are being compiled, while the department continues to provide assistance to the search parties involved.
Meanwhile, Michael Fredericks, one of the survivors of the sinking, yesterday recounted that had it not been for him scrambling up the rope which connected the barge to the vessel, he may not have been alive today. He said he was accompanying the mining equipment, owned by his brother Marlon Fredericks, to the Barama River at the time. He said his brother and another man, Weldon Damon, called ‘Toney,’ also of the Pomeroon, are business partners and they were shifting their mining operations from the Cuyuni to the North West District. His brother, he said, suffered substantial losses, noting that welding equipment, several chainsaws and pipes and fittings went down with the ship.
Fredericks recalled that the vessel had been chugging along the trip from it they departed Buck Hall on Wednesday afternoon under difficult circumstances. He gave a similar account to that of Jack Jr and Massidas, who said the barge hit the vessel’s stern in the Iron Punt area in rough waters as the crew attempted to transfer a pump to the ship from the barge.
The MV Crissan–V departed for the NWD on Wednes-day with nine persons on board, five of whom were part of the crew while the others were accompanying the mining equipment. Five men managed to pull themselves aboard the barge when the ship sank on Wednesday night.
A watchman at Parika said yesterday that the vessel had been docked at the beach area off Roden Rust for several months in each of the past three years. He said the old ship was not seaworthy and the owner had planned to sell it this year.
The vessel has had a chequered history, having failed inspections by MARAD in 2008. It was subsequently moved to the Essequibo Coast from the county of Demerara by its owners. It was moored at the Roden Rust area along the banks of the Essequibo River in the vicinity of Parika for several months, according to MARAD.
