GILFORD, N.H. (AP) – The body of a man who fell off a Halloween cruise during the weekend remained missing Monday as crews used a high-tech cameras to scan Lake Winnipesaukee.
James Sylvestre, 45, of Hooksett, fell off the popular MS Mt. Washington into the lake during a Halloween party about 10 p.m. Saturday night. He had told his wife that he was going up on deck to get some air during the last half-hour of the cruise.
A four-hour search ensued, but was hampered by darkness, driving rain and strong winds.
Fish and Game Lt. Jim Goss said conditions weren’t much better on Sunday, when bad weather forced a suspension of the search late in the morning. Conditions were better Monday, but the Marine Patrol said late in the day it had no news to report.
“Diving is very difficult,” Lt. Tim Dunleavy of the New Hampshire Marine Patrol said of the wind and rough waters. “The water depths as well are difficult – we’re ranging from 60 to 100 feet of water.”
With water temperatures in the 50s, searchers said anyone in the lake would be overcome by hypothermia in a matter of minutes. Monday’s search was deemed a recovery operation, not a rescue effort.
Goss said only a few of the 290 people onboard saw Sylvestre fall. Goss said nothing untoward appeared to have happened before the accident.
“It just appears he fell over the rail,” he said.
Sylvestre and his family made a tradition of attending the Halloween cruise.
The captain stopped the ship, but it had traveled an undetermined distance before the crew was alerted. Goss said the ship covers a mile in about six minutes.
The crew threw out a life ring, turned on floodlights and got help from the Marine Patrol; Fish and Game; and fire and police from Gilford, Laconia and Alton.
Goss said the search area was about a mile long, between Welch Island and Rattlesnake Island in Gilford.
Mount Washington Cruises in the Weirs Beach section of Laconia operates the ship from May through October.
“The heartfelt thoughts of the management and crew of Mount Washington Cruises are with the families impacted by this event. For more than 134 years, safety has been the Number 1 concern of the M/S Mount Washington,” the company said in a statement. It referred all calls to authorities, with whom it said it was cooperating fully.
AP-ES-10-30-06 1847EST
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