Skipper drowns as trawlers collide

Irish marine authorities last night issued a detention order on a British registered Spanish vessel involved in a daylight collision on Sunday with an Irish trawler, whose skipper was drowned.

Danny O'Driscoll, 42, skipper of the 45ft trawler The Exodus, was pulled from the water after his boat went down but was dead at arrival on hospital. Gardai on Sunday night boarded the Spanish vessel, the 125ft long Sea Horse at Castletownbere and took statements from crew. An Irish Fisheries protection vessel carrying divers yesterday sailed to the scene of the collision, 10 miles off Dursey Island off west Cork to carry out further investigations.

The sinking follows a series of confrontations between small Irish vessels and large long-line Spanish fishing boats off the south west coast.