The Coast Guard calls off the search for three University of Rhode Island students who disappeared in the fog off Bonnet Shores.

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, March 15, 2006

BY ARTHUR GREGG SULZBERGER
Journal Staff Writer

After two days of scouring Narragansett Bay for three University of Rhode Island students who disappeared early Monday morning, the Coast Guard has ended the search with little hope that they would turn up alive.

"We're no longer optimistic that further search efforts will be successful," said Coast Guard Commander Peter Martin shortly before sunset, when the rescue effort was officially brought to a close.

The search for Daniel P. Donahue, 20, Geoffrey M. Wilkes, 18, and Fandia M. Sod Shloul, 21, started early Monday morning when their boat was discovered empty and partially submerged in the 40-degree water off Bonnet Shores in Narragansett.

It is believed the students headed into the cold, foggy waters in the small rowboat after attending a party. Two oars, a cap and a sandal were found floating nearby.

Without protective gear or lifejackets there is little chance that anyone could survive in the cold bay water for more than 20 minutes, according to a Coast Guard expert.

The Coast Guard initially planned to call off the search yesterday morning, after a night of searching hindered by thick fog.

Instead, the massive local, state and federal search effort continued -- first in the morning rain then in afternoon sunshine -- growing to eight boats, three helicopters, several dive teams and a K-9 division.

Steve Hall, chief of the Department of Environmental Management's Enforcement Division, said the efforts comprised the largest water rescue operation in at least 15 years.

THROUGHOUT the day, family members and friends of the students watched the search from the rocky beach at the University of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay Campus, where Coast Guard officials were leading the rescue operation.

"This is obviously a sad, sad moment," said URI President Robert Carothers, as the search and rescue effort was being called off.

The DEM planned to patrol the Bay today with two or three vessels, unless gusty winds postponed the effort to recover bodies.

"Sometimes we recover a victim in a few days, sometimes in a few weeks, sometimes in a few months, sometimes in a few years, sometimes never," said Hall. "We're hoping to recover all three obviously, but there's no guarantee of that."

Early Monday morning, the first day of spring break, the three students were gathered with a handful of other close friends at a small party at a house on Col. John Gardner Road, according to the Narragansett police.

AT 2:30 A.M., five people left the house for a walk along the fog-blanketed Narragansett shoreline and the short stretch of sand and gravel called Little Beach, when the group came upon a small aluminum rowboat on the sand, said Narragansett Police Detective Lt. Gerald Driscoll.

Donahue, a junior at the College of Environment and Life Sciences, Wilkes, a sophomore at the College of Environment and Life Sciences, and Shloul, a Pawtucket resident who was taking a break from the College of Nursing, got in the boat and paddled close to shore, with the hull of the tipsy skiff just inches above the frigid water. The two friends standing on shore went back to the house after asking the three to paddle back to the beach, said Driscoll. The boaters opted to stay on the water. Driscoll said the incoming tide could have pushed the students up the Bay. "Being in the fog and being in the dark they probably had no idea where they were," he said.

Shortly after 4:00 a.m. a URI security officer patrolling near the Endeavor research vessel, docked about a half mile from where the students launched, called URI and Narragansett Police to report that he had heard voices coming from the water, but received no response when he called through the fog. Police notified the Coast Guard.

Shortly afterwards, the fishing boat Relentless, traveling back to Quonset, reported seeing something flat, possibly a piece of dock, floating in the area.

When the Coast Guard arrived around 5:30a.m. they quickly encountered the boat -- partially submerged but intact. Around 7 a.m., worried friends of the three students contacted the police to tell them about the previous night's activities, said Driscoll.

Officials say they do not know how the vessel became submerged.

"We know the who, what, when and where; we just don't know the why," said Thomas Silvia a DEM officer who is investigating the accident.

Hall said the investigation would continue. "We may never determine what was the primary cause of the accident, but we're going to do our best."

Some people at the party were drinking but there was "no indication at all that there was any excessive drinking," said Narragansett Police Chief J. David Smith. Driscoll said when he interviewed the students early that morning there was no indication that they had been drinking heavily. "Nobody was severely hung-over, nobody was still intoxicated," he said.

asulzber@projo.com / (401) 277-7405

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