Fisherman has bath before calling coastguard
The skipper of a small fishing boat which sank off the Northern Ireland coast calmly swam ashore - then had a good hot bath before calling the emergency services and telling them what had happened, it emerged today.
The 61-year-old spend an hour swimming and drifting ashore in the chilly waters after his vessel sank beneath him in Dundrum Bay off the Co Down coast yesterday afternoon, said coastguards.
Now Leslie Fitzpatrick thinks it might be time to give up the sea after his ordeal.
He was hauling for creels in around 20 metres of water half-a-mile offshore when a rope fouled the propeller of the five metre Wild Wave and it sank before he could fire distress flares or radio for help.
Coastguards said he activated the gas-filled life-jacket which he always wore at sea and calmly swam and drifted to shore.
‘‘He was able to walk to his nearby home and took a warm bath before informing the emergency services,’’ said a coastguard spokesman.
Mr Fitzpatrick said: ‘‘I’m still not sure how it happened so quickly, but without the life-jacket I would simply not be here today.
‘‘I think someone is trying to tell me its time to retire from the sea.’’
Local coastguard sector manager Richard Newell added: ‘‘This was a well equipped small fishing boat working within sight of the shore yet nobody saw the boat go down or saw the skipper in the water for over an hour.
‘‘Had Mr Fitzpatrick not been wearing a life-jacket we could easily have been looking at another tragedy on the Co Down coast.’’
Earlier this month the bodies of three generations of the same family - father, son and grandson were finally recovered from the wreckage of their fishing boat which sank in mysterious circumstances in February a short distance up the Co Down coast.
