Captain, crew of doomed ship loved the sea, despite dangers

One body has been sighted in the debris area, but the search continues for survivors.

“We believe that they still could be alive”, Somma said. “We’re in all corners of the world at any time, and this has really brought us together”, Farmer said.

When a ship loses power, crew will try to fix the problem, Greene said. The call came as the hurricane paused east of the Bahamas, gathering strength and crossing the path of the ship as it turned to the north.

The company has not explained why the ship was traveling amid a hurricane that reached Category Four on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity. Near midday, the forecast was still for a tropical storm, but moving closer to the ship’s path.

A full list of the crew members has not been released, and a spokesman for TOTE Services, the ship’s owner, did not respond to messages for comment. The average water temperature around the Bahamas this time of year is 78 to 80 degrees.

“Regrettably, he suffered a mechanical problem with his main propulsion system, which left him in the path of the storm“, Greene told the AP.

But officials have acknowledged there is scant chance of finding survivors given El Faro disappeared in ferocious winds and seas up to 50 feet (15 meters) high.

The ship’s crew members have deep ties to Maine.

The president of the company that owned the boat, which sent a distress signal Thursday morning and has not been heard from since, said that the captain indicated that he was aware of the conditions near Hurricane Joaquin. Randolph also attended Maine Maritime Academy.

About a week later, she is coming to grips with bad news.

The Coast Guard announced Monday that the El Faro has been lost.

Relatives of two Mainers feared lost at sea after the sinking of the cargo ship El Faro said they are remaining positive about the search process, and do not doubt the decisions made by the ship’s captain.

“All I ask is for you to pray for the crew members”, Bobillot said.

The 790-foot ship was piled high with containers and also was weighed down with trailers and automobiles below deck, according to Coast Guard officials. It was bound for San Juan, about 1,300 miles to the southeast, but ran into the hurricane less than halfway into the trip. The ship’s last known location was about 40 miles northeast of the Crooked Islands. That was the last communication from the ship.

Laurie Bobillot is tired. Hope is all she has.

“It’s not like you’re in the auto and you are going to put the pedal to the metal”, he said. He said students repeatedly do survival and safety drills. One unidentified body has been found.

“When the ship sailed on Tuesday evening, the storm was nowhere near what it was at the time that the vessel became disabled”, Chiarello said. The rescue swimmer and crew were running out of daylight and were receiving reports of other objects floating in the area.

CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin accompanied a Coast Guard team on a daylong search flight Monday. “But we will find out what happened”.

The vessel’s owners say they don’t believe so, but the question – along with the captain’s decision to plot a course near the storm – will nearly certainly be part of an investigation launched Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board into the disaster near the Bahamas that may have claimed 33 lives. At least three other Mainers, including Maine Maritime Academy graduates Dylan Meklin, Danielle Randolph both of Rockland, and Michael Holland of Wilton are aboard the ship. He’s now a merchant mariner.