The family of a 62-year-old American rower missing in the Atlantic Ocean today launched a privately-funded search operation off the west coast of Ireland.
Retired cardiologist Mr Nenad Belic was last heard from 400 miles off the coast of Ireland a week ago.
A distress signal was picked up 210 miles west of Bantry Bay last Sunday sparking a major search operation.
But despite the work of Irish and British coastguard helicopters and fixed wing aircraft there was no sign of the rower or his 21ft boat, the Lun.
Other craft in the area joined the search, but to no avail and the operation was called off. Today his son Adrian, 32, chartered a British-based light aircraft and began to search off the Galway coast.
He said he "clung to the hope" that his father had survived and that his boat might be drifting, as no wreckage had been found.
The boat, which Nenad Belic made himself was "unsinkable", he said. And he added that his father had no problems on the voyage other than an electrical fault.
Mr Adrian Belic hopes the previous searches have simply missed his father and said the family would do everything in their power to try to find him. Mr Nenad Belic set out from Cape Cod on May 11th and was last heard from 400 miles of the Irish coast on September 28th.
PA