in a 15-foot (4.5 metre) open boat in near gale force winds early on Sunday. They failed to return at the planned time of 5 p.m. (1500 GMT). The boat had a motor and was also equipped with buoys, lifejackets and oars. Rescue services said there was no sign of the boat or the Germans, although they had found a yellow bucket similar to those used in such vessels. "We will search until it is out of the question to find them. We will work until it is dark tonight," Sander Bull-Gjertsen at the rescue centre at Sola near Stavanger told Reuters. He said conditions in the North Sea on Monday were calm with the odd fog bank.