3. The Ship Wreck

Available for 29 days

On the morning of the 27 January, 2021, the Nicola Faith left its home port of Conwy with skipper Carl McGrath and crewmen Ross Ballantine and Alan Minard onboard. The small, brightly coloured boat was a familiar sight along a coastline where commercial fishing boats are becoming increasingly rare. The weather was good as the three men started working two to three miles off the coast of Llandudno.​ But hours later, their monitoring systems stop transmitting. And the boat - and crewmen - seemingly vanished into thin air. What happened next was an agonising wait for answers, and closure. Catrin Nye speaks to families, RNLI crew, and investigators about the hunt for the Nicola Faith, how the COVID pandemic affected the search - and the implications on the future safety of people who risk their lives working at sea.