The eleven fishermen who went missing at sea earlier this year have been officially declared dead by the Western Cape High Court, nearly six months after their fishing trawler, ‘the MFV Lepanto’, sank.
The boat went under in just three minutes on May 17, approximately 34 nautical miles off the coast of Hout Bay.
The fishermen, who were employed by Viking Fishing, a subsidiary of Sea Harvest Corporation, were part of a crew of 20 fishermen who had been at sea for three days.
When news of the incident broke, Sea Harvest spokesperson Anthea Abraham said the vessel had an excellent safety track record with zero reportable safety incidents in the last five years.
The surviving nine fishermen were rescued by other boats in the vicinity after sending a mayday distress call before the boat sank completely.
Search efforts were initiated by emergency rescue services, including the National Sea Rescue Institute(NSRI), to try and locate the missing fishermen, but the search was called off a few days later and the fishermen were presumed drowned.
This development led to the families of the fishermen and representatives of Viking Fishing petitioning the court to declare the men deceased to facilitate the management of their estates.
On Monday, Judge James Lekhuleni granted the petition, citing that despite extensive search efforts authorities had recovered no new clues that could lead to finding the missing crew, leading him to believe that they had unfortunately drowned on that day, and the court had no choice but to declare them dead.
Lekhuleni recounted the events leading to the disaster, sharing how the surviving crew had managed to inflate a life raft after their vessel capsized while attempting to find and assist their missing crew mates.
Faadiel Groenewald, 27, and 24-year-old Wilfred Swiers from Pella near Atlantis were among the fishermen who drowned.