A team of Naval Service divers last night travelled to Dunmore East in Co Waterford in anticipation of getting a break in the weather which will allow them dive on the wreck of the trawler, Pere Charles, and search for its five missing crewmen.
A team of divers under Lieut Darragh Kirwan will assess the situation off Hook Head today and decide whether it is possible to carry out a dive, according to Dave McMyler, incident co-ordinator with the Irish Coast Guard.
The Pere Charles is lying in about 135m (443ft) of water and it is hoped that the bodies of its crew of Tom Hennessy, his uncle Pat Hennessy, Pat Coady, Billy O'Connor and Andriy Dyrin from Ukraine are still on board the trawler, which sank on January 10th.
Mr McMyler said the forecast for today is for force six winds, which would make diving on the wreck difficult, but the Naval Service team will assess the situation when they visit the site on board the Irish Lights ship, Granuaile.
It is equipped with a dynamic positioning system whereby a computer controls the ship's engines to ensure that it remains in position at a particular co-ordinate and, as a result, can provide a stable platform for dive teams to explore the seabed.
Last week, a team of Naval Service divers under Lieut Tony O'Regan carried out three dives on the Pere Charles and managed to remove some netting obstructing access points to the ship before bad weather forced them to abandon further dives.
Meanwhile, Mr McMyler said searches by both the Coast Guard helicopter based at Waterford and the LE Eithne had found no evidence of an oil slick off Minehead in west Waterford, where the Honeydew II sank in the early hours of January 11th.
