The skipper of an Irish trawler that sank off the Scilly Isles on Monday yesterday paid tribute to all those involved in the rescue of himself and his six crew after they spent several hours clinging to liferafts in freezing Atlantic waters.
Noel O'Sullivan, from Castletownbere, told how his 23m (77ft) boat, the Discovery, began to list shortly after 10am on Monday and capsized within a few minutes, forcing him and his crew to don their life jackets and abandon the vessel some 110 miles south of Mizen Head.
"Everybody was in the water for about half an hour until the boat actually went down because she was upside down for quite a spell. She went down after maybe 25 or 30 minutes and one of the liferafts came up," Mr O'Sullivan told RTÉ Radio One's News at One.
"We had got one liferaft off and she was on the surface but she was of little use because she was punctured. The other one came up maybe 150 to 200 feet from five of the crew and two of us were further back - we just got the punctured one and pulled it back to us," he said.
Mr O'Sullivan, his cousin, David Murphy, and their crew of two Poles, one Lithuanian, one Latvian and one Portuguese man were fortunate that the electronic position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) on the Discovery went off before the vessel went down.
He explained that the EPIRB had been serviced just before Christmas and the Discovery had been fitted with new liferafts last year.
He believed that this ensuring that safety levels were kept at recommended levels made their rescue possible.
They were spotted by an Air Corps Casa aircraft after they let off a flare and were picked up soon afterwards by a passing freighter, Front Commander, from which they were winched on board a royal navy helicopter and flown to Culdrose in Cornwall.
"The people in the ship were fantastic and the people over here [ n Cornwall] have been absolutely brilliant - from the coastguard to the helicopter people, everybody has been overwhelmingly welcoming," said Mr O'Sullivan, who has been fishing since 1991.
"You get plenty of time to think out there - a minute seems like an hour . . . I wouldn't want to go through it again - nor would the crew . . . you just keep your head above water, a little swell and you'd be surprised at how helpless it would make you feel.
"The weather conditions were extremely good - it was a good job that it was, Lord help us if the weather was bad, I don't think it would be as good an outcome . . . you really fight for your life and the lives of your friends when you're put to the test . . . we're lucky to be alive," Mr O'Sullivan added.
