Active search for missing fisherman off N.S. called off; aircraft return

YARMOUTH, N.S. - The ex-wife of a fisherman who died when his boat sank off southwestern Nova Scotia says he was a great captain who saved his crew before going down with the vessel.
Julie Boudreau said Thursday that David Trask, 60, will never be replaced.
"He did what he had to do as a captain," she said, recalling descriptions of the harrowing experience related by the three surviving crewmen.
"He got them suited up . . . and got them off the boat."
The active search for Trask and his dragger, the Pubnico Explorer, was called off Thursday afternoon as rough weather enclosed the ocean off Yarmouth.
Maj. James Simiana, a search-and-rescue spokesman in Halifax, said the time frame for possible survival had passed, even for someone wearing an immersion suit.
"All avenues have been exhausted. The area has been extensively searched," he said. "Regrettably, now we're beyond the survival capability of the individual given the water and the weather conditions."
The dragger was returning to Meteghan, N.S., early Wednesday when it began taking in water.
Boudreau said the rescued crewmen told of the 18-metre vessel listing in the water under the strain of 18,000 kilograms of fish in the hold and an inward rush of seawater.
She said her ex-husband was also wearing a survival suit, but the boat went down too fast for him to leave with the others.
"They had to clamber up . . . the side to get off," Boudreau said from her home. "They had to pull each other up there to get off. They had to climb up because the boat was listing so bad."
She said Trask told his crew to jump and they swam about 15 metres to the life-raft.
They waited for their skipper, but he didn't follow.
"They were young and David wasn't," said Boudreau.
"David was 60 years old and he was probably tired. He'd been up and down (in the hold) working on the pump. He'd been steering manually in the wind with big seas . . . because the power steering had gone and he was tired."
She said the crew watched from the life-raft as a large wave hit the vessel and it sank quickly.
"It might have just took him right in the wheelhouse, I don't know," she said. "The wave was huge.
"They were only off the boat one minute and she was down. She was gone and Dave was on it."
The crewmen in the life-raft were picked up by a Canadian Coast Guard cutter and returned to port.
On Wednesday evening, a U.S. Coast Guard jet fitted with forward-looking, infrared, heating-seeking gear arrived and flew the search area, said Simiana.