MEMBERS OF the emergency services in west Cork have said it was "a miracle" that more lives were not lost after a boat capsized off the coast in the early hours of yesterday morning.
A 62-year-old Swiss tourist died when the 5m (16ft) punt in which he was travelling with nine other men and their luggage, turned over in a heavy swell and winds gusting up to 100km/h (62mph).
The boat was on the way to Coney Island, a privately-owned island less than half a mile off the Cork coast.
Eight of the nine survivors spent a number of hours clinging to their boat before they were swept ashore by the tide.
Michael O'Regan, area officer of the Goleen Coast Guard said he was amazed that nine of the 10 men managed to survive the tragedy. "It is a miracle; 99 times out of a hundred you would have had 10 casualties today," he said.
"As far as we could see nobody was wearing a life jacket. I did not see life jackets anyway."
The man who died had arrived in Ireland on Thursday night with eight friends to stay at a holiday home on Coney Island, which was owned by Irishman Michael McGill.
The group, who were aged between 55 and 62, left Colla Pier near Schull in west Cork some time after 11.30pm on Thursday. The boat's engine failed at Long Island Sound and the boat capsized shortly after 1am.
The alarm was raised shortly after 2am when one of the 10 men managed to swim ashore to nearby Long Island, which only has a handful of residents. The other men were washed ashore to Long Island by 4am. The man who died was found on the beach by members of the Baltimore RNLI lifeboat crew, who had been called to the scene along with lifeboats from Baltimore and Castletownbere.
Eight survivors managed to make their way to a vacant house on Long Island. They did not know a ninth member of their party had already raised the alarm and were relieved to be found in the vacant house.
The group were then brought via boat from Long Island to Schull and were taken to Bantry General Hospital for treatment. They were later discharged after being treated for shock.
The dead man's body was taken to Cork University Hospital where a postmortem was due to be carried out yesterday.
Kieran Cotter, coxswain of the All Weather Baltimore Lifeboat, said the men were deeply shocked when they were found in the vacant house.
"They were very cold," he said. "It was very wet and windy. They were extremely lucky they held on to the boat."
Mr Cotter said it was a miracle that nine of the men survived in the water, which was about 10 degrees.
He also said he did not know whether the men had life jackets as they had removed their wet clothes before they were found.
"I don't know about life jackets, I did not see any," he said.
An investigation into the incident will be carried out in the coming days.