Search for man missing in lake scaled down

After the police of three cantons joined forces to look for a man missing in the lake on Thursday, the search was scaled down on Friday.

In the meantime, the rowing boat he went out on last Thursday has been retrieved; it belonged to an experienced rower in his seventies from Oberwil.

As previously reported, the man fell from his boat some 200 metres from the shore in Walchwil. Although police from a diving unit and a helicopter were brought in, it was not possible to locate him.

As Zug Police spokesman Frank Kleiner explained, the search for a missing person never stops but the diving unit was no longer involved on Friday. The waters where he went missing are very deep, some 100 metres in fact. “Even divers cannot go that far,” he said.

When enquiries were made at the Zug Rowing Club, its chairman, Christian Steiger, said they knew who the owner of the privately-owned rowing boat in question was, and they had tried to contact him since Thursday, but to no avail.

The missing man, a 73-year-old who used to own a butcher’s shop in Oberwil, is a very experienced oarsman, rowing thousands of kilometres a year. In fact he came second in the World Rowing Championships in Slovenia in the 70-75 age category in September last year.

Steiger went on to explain that rowing, much like skiing and hiking, was not without risks. “It is especially dangerous in colder weather, this is why in winter we only go out in boats with several rowers on board as this reduces the risk of capsizing.”