The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Royal Bahamas Defence Force and its partners rescued 243 locals who were in distress at sea over the past four years, failing to locate only ten people presumed to have died.

Commodore Raymond King discussed the success rate of search and rescue efforts with The Tribune after officials ended their search for two Bimini men, James Toote, Jr, and Naz’r Robins, who disappeared while travelling from Grand Bahama to Bimini last month.

 “It is most regrettable and unfortunate when persons go missing, and we are unable to locate them or find them. It can be a myriad of reasons why,” Commodore King said. 

 “One, you often find that persons don’t have the necessary safety, communication and survival equipment on board vessels as prescribed and as enforceable by the Port Department.”   

“And so, by the time family members raise the alarm that family members are missing, there’s absolutely no means of communication. And if they don’t have (on) the various safety equipment, let’s say life vests, it makes it extremely difficult to locate and find persons if they don’t have this safety equipment on board.”  

 The RBDF acknowledged that weather plays a big part in how successful search efforts become.

 He said suspending a search is one of the toughest calls a commander can make.

 “Every day (that) passes, the probability of a person being found diminishes considerably consistent with weather conditions and so many times you have to close cases after exhausting, extensive hours or after five or seven days,” he added. 

 “It’s one of the toughest calls any commander can make to suspend the search and we always conduct our searches in collaboration with BASRA. We use the United States Coast Guard, aerial assets to assist us in determining the recommended search patterns and the probability of survival given various search patterns and so it is done professionally and with due care and concern.” 

 Commodore King said authorities have received many calls of distress from vessels in the area of Bimini and Grand Bahama over the years. 

 He said some of the vessels in distress were being used for suspected human smuggling operations.

 “What we have also uncovered is that a lot of those unregulated human smuggling attempts may have went wrong and the weather conditions weren’t favourable, and the vessel would’ve capsized,” he said.

 “So, it’s a mixture of human smuggling, but we have had a lot of cases whereby it was just recreational and persons enjoying the sports and commercial activities. A lot of times, vessels ran out of fuel. They exhaust their fuel and now they’re drifting and we have to assist them by either giving them fuel or we tow them in.” 

 Mr King said the RBDF is usually alerted to reports of people missing at sea when concerned family members call police or the RBDF’s Harbour Patrol.

 For his part, Eddie Whan, chairman of the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association (Northern Bahamas), estimated that BASRA saved some 1,400 people at sea over the last five years, including undocumented migrants.

 “We haven’t lost a lot (of people),” he said in a recent interview. “We have been quite successful, thank God, and overall, I can’t count more than about a dozen that we actually lost since I’ve been in charge.”