Continued from Page 1

Lerwick lifeboat was called out to recover the body.

There was no sign of the Green Lily yesterday morning on Bressay, where she had been driven on to the rocky shore.

Fifteen hours of storm force winds and 20ft waves had broken her up along the shore of Noss Sound, a mile or so from where Mr Deacon was last seen in the water just after 3pm on Wednesday.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch inspectors flew to Shetland yesterday and began their investigations last night.

Criticism has been levelled at the Croatian captain, Ezio Abram, his five Croatian officers, and nine Filipino crew, not least from Mr Hewitt Clark, coxswain of Lerwick lifeboat.

In an extremely hazardous operation, the lifeboat had managed to get five crew members off, but not without some added difficulty. Mr Clark said: ''I asked them to be ready to come off before we got too close to the shore and nothing seemed to happen on board. They seemed not to appreciate the gravity of the situation until it was too late.

''They had more interest in going below and getting their belongings. You would think they were going on a picnic.''

Meanwhile, Councillor Tavish Scott, chairman of Lerwick Harbour Trust, said the vessel should not have left the port given the weather conditions. No other vessel had left at that time.

There also is confusion about what she had been doing before she reported her difficulties, having managed to sail only between 10 and 20 miles from Shetland in almost 24 hours.

Mr Allan Wishart, general manager of the harbour trust, said: ''She left here just after 9am on Tuesday and I have no idea where she went after. I would say the weather conditions had been pretty atrocious all week, even by Shetland standards.''

A Shetland coastguard spokes-man said: ''We had no contact. We wouldn't unless the ship was in difficulty so we didn't hear anything until Wednesday morning.''

Captain Abram was being looked after along with his crew in the seaman's mission in Lerwick yesterday but refused to comment. Represen-tatives of the ships' owners were flying from Oslo last night.

Criticism was also levelled at Shetland coastguard by a former colleague of Mr Deacon in the Royal Navy search and rescue service. Former Petty Officer Jim Evans served 22 years in the service as a navigator and winchman. He later served for three years between 1992 and 1995 in Shetland coastguard.

He said last night he had monitored Wednesday's events and was convinced the coastguard should have overruled the captain and issued a distress signal right away.

''The senior watch officer has the authority to override the skipper of the vessel if people are in danger of losing their lives in British territorial waters.

''If a Mayday had been put out then there would have been immediate action rather than a slow build-up. Mayday calls for immediate assistance and everything would have come to bear on that vessel immediately. Pan Pan (an emergency signal for when life is not in immediate danger) just alerts any vessels in the area, but there weren't any. That's why they had to come from Lerwick.''

Mr Evans, who lives in Brighton, also condemned the captain for refusing to abandon ship earlier.

Coastguard Agency spokesman Mike Gates said last night: ''I cannot make any response to such criticism because of the investigation.''