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BRISBANE - The search for three sailors missing off the north Queensland coast will continue this weekend, focusing this time on islands in the area.
Twenty-five members from the Proserpine State Emergency Service (SES) unit have offered to spend the weekend searching Gloucester Island near Airlie Beach and Point George near Bowen.
The volunteers will use flat-bottomed floodboats and walk along beaches in their search.
There has been no sign of skipper Derek Batten and brothers Peter and James Tunstead, all from Perth, since their catamaran Kaz II was found adrift off Townsville last week.
Emergency service crews found the engine running, computers turned on, food on the table and the GPS system operating but no sign of the boat's crew.
Authorities spent several days searching surrounding waters, and family members of the missing trio have spent the last week using chartered boats to search islands.
James Tunstead's son Shane Webber said he was grateful for the support of the SES this weekend, but that he was unsure whether the search would prove fruitful.
"The SES are going to put some people on land and search around Point George, Gloucester Island and a few of the islands around that area where the last radio transmission was," he told ABC Radio.
"They are fairly well vegetated and mountainous as well. So I don't know how the foot search is going to go."
- AAP
