There was no sign of human life hours after a fishing boat with 40 men disappeared en route to Pedro Cays.  With the help of Coast Guards from Cuba and the United States, Jamaicans scoured the route that would have been taken by the fishermen, but there was no sign of the boat and the men.

Published Saturday, July 6, 1963

‘Snowboy believed lost’

-Rescue-search craft due at banks today

-Boat finds, table, plane spots flotsam, bamboo, debris in Pedro Cays area

THE M.V. JAMAICA, harbour master’s buoy tender, sailed from Kingston Harbour at 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon to investigate reports of the sighting off Pedro Cays of furniture, debris, and equipment that could have come from the fishing boat Snowboy, which has been missing since Tuesday with 40 men, all but one of them Jamaican, on board. Jamaica is due to reach the scene of the floating debris this morning.

Throughout yesterday, planes from the US Coast Guard in Florida and the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, continued the search for the missing boat.

Yesterday morning, the harbour master, Capt. S. H. Wiliers, reported that he had received a radio message from the fishing boat Marsutana, stating that a table believed to be from the missing boat had been sighted two and a quarter miles from Northeast Cay in the Pedro Cays. As a result of the radio message, the harbour master’s buoy tender was dispatched to the area and is expected to reach the Pedro Cays at around 5.00 a.m. today.

A Coast Guard plane also reported yesterday afternoon that it had spotted wood and bamboo floating in the sea about 10 miles southeast of Portland Rock, about 20 miles from Pedro Cays.

It is known that the Snowboy carried 50 lengths of bamboo, 50 rolls of wire, and 14 dozen sticks with which to catch fish.

Jamaica has also been alerted to investigate the report from the US Coast Guard plane, and the result of the investigation should be known this morning.

Yesterday, an American press report quoted a United States Navy spokesman as saying that the Snowboy had been found safe in a position south of Kingston. The spokesman was quoted as saying that the 63-foot vessel, missing for three days, had radioed its position to the Atlantic Fleet Headquarters in Norfolk Virginia.

Confusion

Later in the afternoon, another report from Washington stated that a Coast Guard officer said that the report that the ship had been located was an error and resulted from confusion with another ship that had been found.

The report further stated that the Navy, describing the Snowboy as a small Colombian refrigerator ship overdue on a Caribbean trip, had reported the finding of the vessel.

THE Snowboy, a former US Air Sea Rescue boat, was owned by Mr Bob Bravman, a resident of Miami, Florida. The boat, chartered by Mr Byron Hill, a Jamaican fisherman of St Elizabeth, left the Zero Processing wharf in West Kingston at around 6.00 p.m. Monday and should have arrived at the Pedro Cays around 2.00 a.m. Tuesday.

Skipper of the missing boat is Capt. Lewis Tole, a native of Hobert, Tasmania, who has been a resident in Jamaica for the past eleven years. He is married and is the father of two children.

Among the 39 Jamaicans aboard the missing fishing boat are Mr Byron, his two sons, Messrs. Kern and Trueman Hill, and his brother, Mr John Hill.

Trueman was involved in a sea drama in September 1962 when he and two other Jamaican fishermen went missing for four days on a fishing trip off the Pedro Cays.

The canoe in which they were fishing, ran out of fuel during bad weather and drifted 125 miles southwest of Kingston. They were picked up by the US destroyer Borie and taken to Kingston.

For feedback: contact the Editorial Department at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com.