The Coast Guard has located the position of a missing Waterford trawler which sank on Wednesday with the loss of five crewmen.
The wreck of the 20-metre twin rig trawler, Pere Charles, was detected 2.5 miles south of Hook Head using sub surface sonar equipment earlier this afternoon.
Naval Service and Garda divers were on standby but extreme weather conditions prevented diving operations, a Coastguard spokeswoman said.
Tonight, the wives of the missing Honeydew II fishermen were joined by friends, relatives and neighbours for a special prayer service at St John the Baptist Church in Kinsale.
The search for the five missing fishermen from the Pere Charlesand two other crewmen from a Kinsale trawler, Honeydew II, which sank on the same day off the Waterford coast was called off earlier in the evening.
The search led by the RNLI lifeboats from Dunmore East, Ballycotton, Kilmore Quay and Rosslare will resume at first light.
The lifeboats were being assisted by two Coast Guard helicopters and the Naval Service patrol vessel LE Emer,as well as several local fishing vessels.
Dunmore East lifeboat takes part in the search for seven fishermen missing from two trawlers which sank off southeast coast.
Weather conditions were said to be very difficult today with a west-southwest gale force eight winds hampering the search.
The Marine Casualty Investigations Board today began separate investigations into the sinkings of the two fishing trawlers.
Last night, two Lithuanian crew members from the Kinsale trawler Honeydew IIwere rescued from a life raft off Mine Head, Co Waterford.
The men, Viktov Losev and Vladimir Kostvr, were rescued after spending 20 hours at sea on the raft. A second, empty lifeboat was also found last night.
The vessel's owner and skipper, Kinsale man Gerard Bohan, and a Polish crew member are still missing.
The Honeydew IIwas last sighted seven miles south west off Mine Head, between Youghal and Dungarvan.
Earlier yesterday two empty life rafts from the 20-metre Pere Charleswere found at Kilmore and St Patrick's Bridge near the Little Saltee.
The Pere Charles- crewed by five men from Kerry, Wexford and Ukraine - left harbour yesterday morning to fish for herring.
On board were skipper Tom Hennessy (32), a father of one originally from the Maharees in Co Kerry; his uncle and fellow Kerryman Pat Hennessy (48), single; Billy O'Connor (50), a father of five from Dunmore East; Pat Coady (27), father of one from Duncormick, Co Wexford; and Andriy Dyrin (32), married with one child from Sevastopol in Ukraine. Mr Coady's father and grandfather both died in drowning accidents.
The last contact from the crew was made to the missing trawler's sister boat, the Suzannah G, which was nearby. Seconds after the radio message that something was wrong, the Pere Charlesvanished from the radar.
The crew of the Suzannah Gheaded for where the missing trawler was located but could not find it.