DATE: Saturday, October 25, 1997            TAG: 9710250309

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A12  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA              LENGTH:   32 lines

LOCAL COAST GUARD AIDS RESCUE OF 10 MARINERS NEAR HALIFAX

A rescue boat headed to shore Friday carrying 10 crewmen plucked from the North Atlantic after their freighter sank in a storm. Four other sailors drowned and one was missing.

Nine of the survivors were rescued from a life raft late Thursday and were in good condition, but the 10th was reported in critical condition with severe hypothermia after spending 19 hours in 50-degree seas. The man was found Friday clinging to the body of a dead crewmate.

Searchers retrieved four bodies from the water before calling off the search for the last sailor.

The rescue boat, the Cape Roger, was headed toward Saint John's, Newfoundland, 420 miles west of where the ship sank Thursday.

The Norwegian-owned 4,000-ton Vanessa was carrying a crew of 10 Filipinos, four Burmese and a Dutch national, and was en route to the Caribbean from Sweden with a cargo of chemical fertilizer.

A Coast Guard C-130 aircraft from Elizabeth City, N.C., assisted in the search and rescue efforts. It arrived in Halifax late Thursday and flew throughout the day Friday trying to find the missing mariners, said officials with the 5th Coast Guard District in Portsmouth.

The flight was made at the request of the Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax. MEMO: Staff writer Jack Dorsey contributed to this report. KEYWORDS: COAST GUARD RESCUE

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