Grim Search on the High Seas : Missing: Friends of Robert Neal look off Port Hueneme for the Ojai fisherman who may have been swept from his boat.

A small search party of commercial fishermen from Port Hueneme spent Friday on a grim ocean hunt for the body of one of their own--an Ojai man who disappeared from his boat this week.

Friends of Robert (Bobby) Neal, 64, believe the man was swept from his boat when a faulty winch released fishing nets too quickly, entangling the fisherman and pulling him overboard toward the ocean floor.

Neal, a popular figure in the close-knit Port Hueneme commercial fishing community, was described as having “a heart of gold.” His friends, still stunned at the news of his disappearance, sat near their boats on Friday morning and talked quietly among themselves about the incident.

Neal had left the port on Wednesday morning to test new nets and cable, said Robert K. Harmuth, director of marine operations for the Port of Hueneme.

“He usually returns in the afternoon, but his wife had heard from another friend that he might have gone up to Santa Barbara, so she didn’t worry when he didn’t come home Wednesday night,” Harmuth said.

Neal’s boat, the 51-foot “Wae Wee Goe,” was discovered by another vessel’s crew shortly after 3:30 p.m. Thursday, bobbing about eight miles off the coast of Port Hueneme.

The boat’s cabin lights were on, but it appeared that no one was on board, Harmuth said. When crew members pulled alongside the vessel, they found only Neal’s frantic black Labrador retriever, Buddy.

Inspection of the boat’s gear revealed that the machine that controls the lowering and raising of nets into and out of the water had broken, apparently allowing the nets to virtually fly off the deck, Harmuth said.

Neal’s friends said they think the fisherman might have been ensnared in the nets and knocked off the boat.

The crew of an oil service boat tried Thursday afternoon to hoist the nets from the water’s depths, to no avail. They appeared to be snagged on an object on the ocean floor, Coast Guard Petty Officer Jeff Gunn said.

The Coast Guard, which had sent a 44-foot rescue boat from Channel Islands Harbor and a helicopter to aid in the search for Neal, suspended its efforts Thursday night. The Coast Guard rejoined the search Friday afternoon after one of the fishing boats found pieces of net presumed to be from Neal’s boat.

As they prepared for the search effort Friday, the Port Hueneme fishermen equipped themselves with large, five-pronged grappling hooks and rope long enough to reach the 150 feet to the ocean floor. Before heading to sea in a half-dozen boats, they spoke of their missing friend.

“I just pinned his 10-year Elks Lodge pin on him a week ago yesterday,” David Hinds said. “He was such a happy-go-lucky kind of a guy, always with a smile on his face. If only his dog Buddy could talk, we’d know exactly what happened.”

Neal, a former Beverly Hills firefighter, loved the ocean, said his daughter, Debbie Winchester, 34, of Ventura.

“He’s really been a fisherman all of his life,” she said. “He turned to commercial fishing as a livelihood in the late 1960s after he was crushed by a plate glass window while fighting a fire.

“He was always kind to people, and never turned his back on anyone,” she said. “He had a good life. He was loved.”