Private search for three missing fishermen to begin this week

A private search for three fishermen who went missing in January is set to begin this week.

Alan Minard, 20, Ross Ballantine, 39, and the boat's skipper Carl McGrath, 34, were declared missing after their fishing vessel the Nicola Faith failed to return to port on January 27.

Earlier this month one of the vessel's life rafts was found off the coast of south west Scotland.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has sent the life raft to a facility in Southampton for further analysis.

The men's families launched a fundraising campaign to enlist the help of David Mearns, a deep-sea recovery expert who helped recover the downed plane carrying Cardiff-bound footballer Emiliano Sala.

Almost £55,000 has been raised to fund the private search with Mr Mearns recently saying on social media that "a committed search" could begin with £40,000, despite the target being £75,000.

Speaking to ITV Wales on March 2, Mr Mearns said he was confident that the vessel could be found.

He said: "Everything that I know and that I've heard about this loss tells me that this boat can be found.

"It's not going to be a million miles away from the normal route they take to go home to port.

"They were in communication with people at certain periods of time, they had an ETA [estimated time] at port and so that allows you to define a fairly limited area where the boat may have sank."

The disappearance of the Nicola Faith and its three crew prompted a significant search and rescue effort including the RNLI, the Coastguard and volunteers.

However, the search was called off after two days after rescue teams could not find anything connected to the boat or its crew.