The island of Grand Manan, located in the Bay of Fundy, south west of New Brunsiwck. The southern most tip of the island, called Flock of Sheep.Tory Zimmerman
Search and rescue officials were holding out hope Tuesday that four people aboard a missing scallop dragger would be found in an inflatable life-raft somewhere in the Bay of Fundy.
"They did have a four-man life-raft," said Barry Smith, maritime co-ordinator with the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax, as the search continued on its second day.
"The only real chance of survival, had they made it out, (was) to launch a life-raft and get in it."
Mr. Smith said the 13-metre dragger RLJ went out fishing last week with enough fuel for four to five days. It was expected to return to port Sunday in Digby, N.S., along the province's western shore.
When it failed to show up Monday, Mr. Smith said the vessel's owner began his own search and alerted the rescue centre.
The boat had life-jackets but was not equipped with survival suits. With the water temperature hovering at 13 Celsius, Mr. Smith said a person would only be able to survive between 12 and 15 hours in the bay.
On Monday, a cooler was found floating in the water, covered in oil. The owner of the missing boat later identified the cooler as belonging to the vessel, said Mr. Smith.
"Something might have happened to the boat to cause the oil to leak out so (the cooler) might have been floating in oil," he said. "But again, a lot of that's speculation. We don't really know what happened."
The search also turned up a life-jacket and debris, including wood, but it wasn't known whether the items came from the dragger.
The boat's last known position was east of St. Martins, N.B. Officials later determined that the cooler originated from that area.
While the rescue centre only received word of the missing boat late Monday morning, Mr. Smith said a tracking system that monitors the movement of vessels every hour for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans stopped receiving updates Friday at around 4:30 p.m.
But Mr. Smith pointed out that vessels can turn the system off and on.
He said the dragger had no emergency beacon, which could have alerted officials much sooner and helped narrow down a search area.
Emergency beacons are not required by law, but Mr. Smith said they "can save a lot of lives." The devices cost between $1,000 and $1,500.
"When something happens, we know within 30 minutes that something's happening out there and it will actually give us a position of where the emergency is," he said.
"So it's a difference between investigating something within an hour or learning about something two days later."
Several aircraft, including Sea King and Cormorant helicopters, and coast guard vessels were involved in the search Tuesday. Mr. Smith said the effort spanned a large swath of the Bay of Fundy from Grand Manan Island off New Brunswick to Nova Scotia's Cape Chignecto.
The weather conditions were fine for a search, he said.
The names of those on board were not released.
"We will continue to search as long as we think they could be found alive," said Mr. Smith.