No further information about the fate of missing crayfishing boat skipper Bruce Gordon (42) and crew member Darren Allen (37) has come to light, police in Te Anau said this morning.
Search and rescue personnel continued to evaluate the latest information supplied from the Rescue Co-ordination Centre about tidal patterns, current movements and debris already located, to identify potential actions or directions for any future searches.
"Given the length of time that's now transpired, the chances are now obviously very limited," Southland area commander Inspector Lane Todd told the Otago Daily Times from Te Anau last night.
"Given the weather conditions on the day the vessel went missing and also the wreckage we've now located of the dingy and the inflatable raft, the chances are very slim."
Asked what caused the loss of the K-Cee, Insp Todd said the inquiry was just starting and it was too early to indicate. He declined to speculate, as it was not fair on the families of the men, he said.
The operation was today expected to enter a "limited continuous phase".
The team would continue to evaluate the latest information supplied from the Rescue Co-ordination Centre about tidal patterns, current movements and debris already located, to identify potential actions or directions for any future searches.
A fixed-wing aircraft or a helicopter may conduct another shoreline search in the next few days, depending on weather conditions and tide, Insp Todd said.
The measures followed a narrowed search operation in good weather yesterday afternoon which did not discover new information.
Two teams of five personnel on foot covered about 1km of shoreline near Rocky Pt, where the bow of the K-Cee was found on Tuesday. Two helicopters and a boat were also involved yesterday, managed from the Te Anau police station.
Insp Todd said morale among the searchers was "as good as can be expected".
"Everyone's disappointed we haven't been able to get a better result up until now for the families' sake, but we had a robust debrief [on Wednesday night] and the whole team felt we certainly haven't left any gaps in the search.
"One word to sum it up would be 'disappointed' we haven't come up with the result for the families."
Insp Todd said two police officers were dedicated full-time as family liaison officers during the operation. Members of the Gordon and Allen families had been "stressed, as you can imagine, from the beginning and our sympathies go with them, because we would have like to have a better result than what we've got to date."
Insp Todd said he wanted to reiterate his thanks to the Te Anau search and rescue community and commercial fishing fleet.
Since Monday morning, police, Te Anau search and rescue staff, commercial fishing boats and a Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion have put in almost 40 hours of searching.