Search for schooner continues in Tatar Strait.

MOSCOW, January 8 (Itar-Tass) -- The search for the schooner Partner
resumed in the Tatar Strait at dawn on Saturday.
"To say that the ship Partner has sunk is prematurely. The search
continues," - spokeswoman for the press service of the Russian Emergencies
Ministry's Far Eastern regional centre Olga Alkina told Itar-Tass by
telephone.
The day before, there was a storm with 3.5-metre icy waves, snow and
wind of up to 20 metres a second in the search area.
On Friday morning, the Partner crew sent a distress signal, giving the
coordinates and saying the ship was sinking and the only life raft failed
to open right.
According to a source of the Federal Fishery Agency, the vessel is not
equipped with a positioning system, and it complicates the search.
The fishing schooner "Partner" flying the flag of Cambodia is
registered in the port of Phnom Penh. The owner company is registered in
Belize. The captain is Alexei Maltsev from Dolinsk, the Sakhalin Region.
The crew numbers 11 people, citizens of Russia, supposedly from the
Sakhalin Region.
According to the maritime rescue centre "Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk", at the
time when the distress signal from the Partner was received, the vessel
was in the Tatar Strait six miles off the coast near Cape Lamanon, the
Uglegorsk district of the Sakhalin Region.
The area of the supposed whereabouts of the schooner in the Tatar
Strait has been examined. The freighter Pioner Kholmska and an An-74
aircraft of the Far Eastern air rescue centre of the Russian Emergencies
Ministry participated in the operation. A ground group examined the coast
from Uglegorsk to Krasnogorsk. The ship was not found, and no shipwreck
traces were detected either, the Emergencies Ministry's Sakhalin regional
department said.
The freight ship Pioner Kholmska and the motor ship "Chelyabinsk"
continue to work in the area. Rescuers from the Sakhalin search and rescue
centre will join in the ground search to examine the coast from Kholmsk to
the village of Ilyinsky, a source at the regional department said.
If the weather improves, two Mi-8 helicopters will join in the
operation.
"The situation is controlled by the Russian Emergencies Ministry's
Main Department in the Sakhalin Region. An operational headquarters is set
up to gather information and coordinate the search.
The operation in the Sakhalin Bay of the Sea of Okhotsk will also
continue on Saturday to rescue the transport refrigerator Bereg Nadezgdy
and the mother ship Sodruzhestvo trapped in ice.
The day before, the icebreaker "Admiral Makarov" of the Far Eastern
Shipping Company went through the heavy ice in the Sakhalin Bay and led
the research vessel "Professor Kizevetter out of the ice trap. The
icebreaker "Magadan" is to lead the research vessel farther to the clear
water.
The "Admiral Makarov" returns to the ice-blocked Bereg Nadezhdy and
the Sodruzhestvo. Another icebreaker, the "Krasin", is on the way to the
trapped vessels.
According to the press center of the Far Eastern Shipping Company,
the "Krasin" is expected to come into the bay by Saturday night.
-0-pan


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