Maritime Mystery Unsolved : Tiny Sub Comes Up Empty-Handed After Scouring Ocean Bottom for Missing Trawler

Descending to 700 feet, the tiny yellow submarine puttered along the ocean bottom on a search to solve one of Ventura County’s most compelling maritime mysteries: the disappearance of the commercial shrimp trawler Vil Vana and its seven-man crew.

Crew members aboard the two-man sub thought they had pinpointed the shipwreck a few miles off Santa Cruz Island. Finding it would probably explain why the 41-foot wooden boat sunk suddenly two years ago.

An examination of the sunken hull might reveal whether it was struck by another vessel--a lethal hole would be proof positive--and possibly answer other questions:

Were the victims trapped inside? That would explain why no bodies were ever found.

Did the accident occur in the southbound shipping lane? That would lend credence to the possibility that a huge tanker either struck or swamped the trawler.

Brimming with confidence, the crew of the Delta began systematically crisscrossing an area in the southbound shipping lane, five miles north of Santa Cruz Island. But they came up empty-handed on the first dive Tuesday and their enthusiasm began to dissipate.

After six dives and a total of six hours of bottom time, they had not found anything but starfish and sea urchins. The search ended in frustration at dusk.

“The mystery continues,” said Doug Privitt, co-owner of Oxnard-based Delta Oceanographics and the designer and builder of the tiny sub.

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The mystery seemed closer to resolution in January when marine researchers from UC Santa Barbara located what they believed was the wreck. They were attempting to recover a valuable research instrument snagged on the bottom. Instead, they pulled up 30 traps and two buoys marked with the Vil Vana’s name.

The researchers notified the U.S. Coast Guard investigation unit in Long Beach that had originally investigated the accident. In early February, the Coast Guard hired a U.S. Navy research vessel for a reported $5,000, closed down the southbound shipping lane where the traps had been found, conducted a 19-hour search with side-looking sonar and robotic TV cameras and announced that nothing had been found.

But neither Privitt nor his partner, Rich Slater, was daunted by the Navy’s lack of success. Scientists as well as adventurers, they believed that high-tech electronics were no match for their up-close-and-personal sub.

Capable of diving to 1,700 feet, the Delta, with 19 portholes and powerful strobe lighting, has explored such storied wrecks as the Lusitania and Edmund Fitzgerald and has discovered wrecks that side-looking sonar missed. Most notable is the Brother Jonathan, a paddle-wheel steamer that sunk in 1865 off Northern California. The steamship remained hidden on the ocean bottom until it was found by the Delta in 1993.

Slater, 57, was optimistic about finding the Vil Vana after embarking on a scouting trip two weeks ago. He motored to Santa Cruz Island on a friend’s boat and used a Fathometer to map the ocean floor. At almost precisely the same depth and same spot where the UCSB instrument was snagged, the Fathometer read a large “bump,” which fit the profile of a wreck, Slater said.

But during Tuesday’s hunt, not a trace of the bump appeared on the sub’s sonar. And the subsequent visual search was hampered by “murky and mushy conditions,” Slater said. He had hoped to find the wreck by following the trail gouged into the bottom by the instrument, which had been been dragged for miles by the current before snagging on what was assumed to be the Vil Vana.

“I’m really disappointed,” said Slater, a Ph.D. in marine geology. “I was overly optimistic. Maybe the Navy was right and there is nothing down there.”

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Slater and Privitt used the opportunity of their sub’s annual deep-water certification to search for the Vil Vana. As underwater explorers, they wanted to solve another mystery of the deep. But they also knew that finding the shipwreck would comfort the victims’ families, who have been tormented by the lack of resolution.

Privitt, 63, is longtime friends with Don Watkins of La Conchita, father of Vil Vana crew member Donnie Watkins. Privitt once vowed to find the wreck “if it takes 10 years.”

Tuesday night at Ventura Harbor, Privitt stood wearily on the deck of the mother ship Cavalier, his determination unbowed.

“I’ll be back,” he said. “I’m not going to stop looking. Opportunities will come up. We’ll be in the area again. We’ll find the boat--it just may take 10 years.”