The search for the navigation bridge of the El Faro, including the cargo ship’s voyage data recorder, resumed Tuesday after Tropical Storm Kate forced the Navy to suspend the search for a few days.

“El Faro search operations which had been suspended due to inclement weather resumed early this morning after (weather) conditions improved,” the National Transportation Safety Board tweeted Tuesday.

The El Faro had four Mainers on board when the ship and its crew of 33 men and women sank during Hurricane Joaquin on Oct. 1. Those Mainers were all graduates of Maine Maritime Academy, as was a fifth crew member, who was from New York. Michael Davidson, 53, of Windham was the El Faro’s captain.

The Navy announced Nov. 3 that it had located the container ship, sitting upright on the ocean bottom but without the bridge.

Deb Roberts, the mother of crew member Michael Holland of Wilton, asked the NTSB on Tuesday about the impact the tropical storm was having on the search for the bridge

Roberts posted the NTSB’s response on a special Facebook page she established for her son. It reads: “Tropical Storm Kate has indeed posed some safety issues for the investigative team on the Apache (the Navy’s search vessel). On Sunday, the ship moved closer to Crooked Island in the Bahamas to wait in calmer waters.”


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