Clues to Sunken Shrimp Boat Found : Mystery: Marine researchers believe they have located the vessel that disappeared off Santa Cruz Island in 1993. They bring up traps and buoys from the ill-fated Vil Vana.

Marine researchers on a salvage mission off Santa Cruz Island believe they have inadvertently located the sunken wreck of the Vil Vana, a commercial shrimp trawler that mysteriously disappeared with all seven men aboard nearly two years ago.

The discovery was made last Wednesday when UC Santa Barbara researchers were trying to retrieve a computerized sediment-collecting instrument belonging to the university’s Marine Science Institute.

The 80-pound instrument, attached to a buoy by a 1,400-foot cable, had been adrift all the way from Point Conception to Santa Cruz Island--a distance of 60 miles--before becoming snagged on a large unidentified mass on the ocean floor, 700 feet below the surface.

Working aboard the 110-foot Jolly Roger, crew members struggled for three hours before pulling the half-inch cable free and reeling it up with a hydraulic winch. What emerged from the sea at the end of the cable, however, was not the instrument but a muddy tangle of 30 shrimp traps and two rubber buoys marked with the Vil Vana’s name and fishing registration number.

The instrument is still down there, held captive by the unidentified mass, which UC Santa Barbara researcher Monte Graham believes is the Vil Vana.

“The instrument had to have gotten caught up on a boat,” Graham said. “There aren’t many rocks in that region.”

Lt. Cmdr. Pete Rennard, who is in charge of the Coast Guard’s investigating office in Long Beach, is still studying details of the find and does not want to jump to conclusions.

“I have no reason to doubt that something large is down there,” Rennard said Monday, “but it would be a leap of faith to suggest what it is.”

If the researchers have, indeed, found the Vil Vana, they may also have provided a clue to its fate. The 30 traps were hauled up in the commercial shipping lanes, lending credence to family members’ theory that the boat was struck by a larger ship.

The 41-foot Vil Vana left Ventura Harbor at 4:30 a.m. on April 9, 1993, setting a course for the shrimp beds off Santa Cruz Island, and was never seen again. That afternoon, satellites began picking up distress signals. About 9 p.m., a Coast Guard helicopter spotted a small amount of debris 1 1/2 miles north of the island, but despite an intense 42-hour search, no boat and no bodies were ever found.

The Coast Guard investigation ruled out collision or fire and speculated that the wooden vessel may have been capsized by a rogue wave or because of pilot error. Investigators believe the boat was unstable because 3,000 pounds of stone ballast had been removed by the Vil Vana’s owners to make room for saltwater tanks in the hold.

But the Coast Guard’s explanation never satisfied the crew’s families and friends.

“I’d like to get finality,” said Don Watkins of La Conchita, whose son Donnie was a crew member. “It’s obvious nobody is coming home, but I’d like to know if the boat is there.”

Rennard, however, said the Coast Guard has no immediate plans to “go down and take a closer look” at the possible wreck.

“At my level, we have no access to any (equipment) that would be able to look at what’s down there,” Rennard said. “That is way out of our league.”

After he examines the traps and interviews the Jolly Roger’s crew, Rennard will decide whether to ask his superiors to requisition the proper equipment. An examination of the wreckage could be done by surface side-scan sonar, a remote submarine or even a hard-hat diver using mixed gas, but “it would be a very short bottom time at that depth,” Rennard said.

Confirming the Vil Vana’s location would put a new spin on the mystery. In its investigation of the accident, the Coast Guard eliminated the possibility that the trawler was either struck or swamped by one of the deep-draft vessels that ply the Santa Barbara Channel shipping lane.

Tanker and cargo ship captains were interviewed and ship hulls inspected, but no indication of a collision was found. The Coast Guard also assumed that the experienced crewmen aboard the Vil Vana would have stayed out of the shipping lane.

But the 30 traps were found in an area five miles north of the island, well inside the southbound shipping lane.

From the beginning, Watkins has held firm in his belief that a collision is the only logical explanation for the Vil Vana’s demise. The location of the recent discovery makes him more certain.

“They were mowed down by a cargo ship,” he said.

Victims’ relatives are furious over the Coast Guard’s failure to release the official report of the investigation nearly 22 months after the accident. Although the investigating officer, Lt. Cmdr. Adeste Fuentes, and his commanding officer, Rennard, both signed off on it, the report is still in Long Beach, “being looked at repeatedly and closely by my bosses,” Rennard said.