Mission sets sail to solve the riddle of missing trawler

ONE OF the great British sea mysteries - what happened to the Hull trawler, the Gaul - may be answered this week. Mansal 18, a purpose- built survey ship hired by the British government to examine the wreck of the trawler, sets sail this afternoon from Kristiansund, in Norway.

It should be in position over the wreck of the sunken trawler by Monday afternoon. Mansal 18 carries extensive underwater survey equipment and cameras and should be able to provide vital clues as to why the Gaul sunk.

The 216 foot Gaul, a factory trawler, disappeared in the icy Berents Sea, during a force nine gale with 40 foot waves, sometime after 8 February, 1974. It was lost with all hands, some 36 men.

In the intervening 24 years, speculation has mounted as to the cause of the sinking. Why did one of the newest, largest and safest trawlers in the fleet suddenly sink without even sending a distress signal?

Since the Gaul vanished, there have been allegations that the trawler was engaged in Cold War spying for British Intelligence. In 1974, Labour Defence Minister Bill Rogers wrote: "I can assure you that the British trawler fleet is not involved in any way in intelligence gathering."

Twenty years on, Lord Rogers now admits that he was "misled" by officials after television programmes showed that Naval Intelligence regularly used trawlers and their crews to spy on the movement of Soviet ships and submarines out of the key northern naval port of Murmansk.

Last December, the Ministry of Defence admitted that Hull trawlers were hired to conduct special missions. The MOD, however, insists these operations stopped in 1973, a year before the sinking.

This week, Hull skipper Jack Lilley said he was recruited by the secret intelligence service to take photographs of a submarine base while he was in Russia at a fishing exhibition. He revealed the man who helped, by keeping Russian officials occupied while he took the photographs, was Peter Nellist. Nellist was skipper of the Gaul.