By the time this edition reaches the street, the fishing trawler Lady Maren will have been missing for more than twenty hours.

The vessel — a 14-metre wooden-hulled trawler, registered to Bobington harbour since 1998 — departed at four o’clock on Saturday morning with a crew of four for a weekend trip to the outer banks, approximately thirty nautical miles north-east of the harbour mouth. Captain Dermot Shale, who has fished these waters for thirty years, radioed the harbour office at approximately 6:40 PM on Sunday to report moderate seas, a fair catch, and an estimated return by dawn on Monday.

No further communication has been received.

Harbour Master Cornelius Ashby issued a maritime alert at midnight Monday, after the vessel failed to respond to repeated radio calls. The coastguard cutter Resolute departed at first light Tuesday to search the outer banks and the approaches.

“The Lady Maren is a sound vessel and Captain Shale is an experienced seaman,” Ashby said from his third-floor office at the Port Authority building, where he has maintained a vigil since midnight. “But eighteen hours without contact in March waters is a matter of serious concern.”

The March gales, which arrived early this year on 2 March, have produced intermittent squalls in the outer approaches over the past week. Conditions on Sunday were moderate — seas of one to two metres with variable winds — but a band of heavier weather moved through the area overnight Sunday into Monday. Ashby confirmed that gusts of up to forty-five knots were recorded at the harbour mouth buoy between two and five o’clock on Monday morning.

The Lady Maren’s crew comprises Captain Shale, his son-in-law Tobias Renn — a deckhand of six years — and two experienced hands. Shale’s wife, Bridget, has been at the Port Authority building since early Monday evening, accompanied by members of the Fishermen’s Benevolent Association.

“Dermot has been through worse,” Mrs Shale said. “He’s been through gales that turned the harbour brown. But he always radios. He always radios.”

The vessel carries a standard marine radio and emergency flares but is not equipped with the newer wireless position-reporting equipment that larger commercial vessels use. Ashby noted that the Harbour Authority has recommended but not mandated position-reporting equipment for vessels under twenty metres — a policy that has drawn criticism from the Fishermen’s Benevolent Association in recent years.

“We’ve written three letters,” said Wilfred Poole, secretary of the Association, who arrived at the harbour before dawn. “After today, we’ll write a fourth.”

The coastguard cutter Resolute, under Captain Anne Dalrymple, is expected to reach the outer banks by midday. A second vessel, the harbour patrol launch Ashwater Guardian, is searching the inner approaches and the coastline north of the harbour.

Three other fishing vessels that were in the outer banks area over the weekend returned safely on Monday. Their captains reported no distress signals but noted that visibility deteriorated sharply after midnight Sunday.

The Lady Maren is Shale’s second vessel. His first, the Morning Star, was retired in 2011 after twenty-three years of service. Shale built the replacement himself over two winters at the Harbourfront boatyard, naming her after his late mother.

The Port Authority has asked all vessels in the outer approaches to maintain a listening watch on the emergency frequency and to report any sightings.

As of press time, no wreckage or debris has been found.