AN inquiry into the deaths of four fishermen on the Westhaven AH190, which sank last March, was told it was more than an hour after the vessel went down before the Coastguard was alerted, twice the expected survival time for the majority of people.

It was also more than nine hours after it received the first report of a distress beacon, that the Coastguard realised it was the Westhaven AH190, not the Westhaven FR375, which they had tracked down earlier.

Until three months before the tragedy, the vessel had been owned by Mr Danny Buchan and his father and was known as the Westhaven FR375, the name they transferred to their new boat.

The new owners of the ill-fated vessel retained the name but changed to the Arbroath registration AH190.

Mr Stuart Atkinson, 36, who was the senior watch officer at Aberdeen Coastguard's Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre at the time, said the first ''hit'' from a satellite beacon suggesting a vessel was in trouble was passed to it at 11.18am on March 10.

He said he was unaware that a Marine Accident Investigation Branch report had concluded that the Westhaven had capsized at 10.10am, when an EPIRB (Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacon) hit had been received at satellite receiving stations in Algeria and Hampshire.

When later asked about data provided by the Naval Institute about the prospects of survival of anyone in the sea without a survival suit, in temperatures of 6-8C, he said: ''My recollection was that more than 50% died within the first few minutes, there was a 99% probability of death within at least two hours, and the majority of people would have died within 30 minutes.''

Mr Atkinson told the inquiry that Mayday status was first declared at 11.41am and stood down at 12.08am, after confirmation was received that the Fraserburgh Westhaven was safe. The Mayday was not resumed until 3.51pm.

He said tens of thousands of single hits were received daily, and emergency services were never alerted until a second hit was received or there was confirmation of a vessel in distress from another source.

By tradition, he said, it was common for more than one fishing vessel to share the same name, and he was not aware of any steps being taken to remedy possible confusion. He could not explain why a check for a second vessel of the same name had not been thought of earlier.

Cross-examined by Mr Keith MacRae, he referred to a letter written by Caley Fisheries, the agents for the Fraserburgh-registered Westhaven, informing the Coastguard District Controller, on December 18, 1996, of the change of ownership of the boat and the transfer to Mr George Pattison in Arbroath.

Mr Atkinson said he was unaware of the letter, but it was possible it had been used to update the Coastguard's own voluntary fishing boat register.

He said the Coastguard did not become aware of a second Westhaven until 4.45pm, when they checked Arbroath, Peterhead, and Buchan ports.

Cross-examined by Mr Mark Lindsay, for the Coastguard, he said the signal received from the EPIRB continued to be intermittent throughout the afternoon, suggesting to him it might be a false alarm.

He said they finally became aware of a second vessel of the same name when a lifebelt marked Westhaven FR375 was recovered by a search vessel and skipper Buchan was contacted again and confirmed all his lifebelts were on board.

It was then, at 8.45pm, Mr Buchan mentioned that he had recently sold the original Westhaven FR375, and it was possibly from that vessel.

The inquiry continues.