A St. John’s area company is baffled as to why RCMP in Nova Scotia declined their offer of the free use of its state-of-the-art sonar to search for a fishing boat that sank off Nova Scotia last month. So too is a newly-formed group calling for improved search and rescue services.

Six men, including Michael Drake of Fortune, lost their lives when their scallop dragger sank in the Bay of Fundy. Drake’s was the only body recovered.

Kraken Robotics contacted RCMP three times about the offer.

Merv Wiseman, who heads up the Concerned Citizens for Search and Rescue, is looking for standing status for the pending inquiry into the Burton Winters tragedy in Labrador.

He says the importance of locating the wreckage from a compassionate and humanitarian standpoint is big, but it’s also important to try to find out what went wrong in order to prevent similar incidents in future.