The search for two missing fishermen appears to be fruitless, close to a week after they went missing,

A Cook Islands Police led search party scaled down operations on Friday while a plea went out to the public on social media calling for more boats and drones to assist with the search for the men who went missing during a fishing trip off Rutaki on Saturday night.

Cook Islands News understands relatives of the men, both in their 50s, are heading from New Zealand to Rarotonga.

Police remain sketchy with details as they were only notified on Wednesday morning.  

What has so far been established is that three men went out fishing from the abandoned Sheraton Hotel by the Papua passage about 8pm. 

They split up with the missing two heading towards Rutaki.

The third man returned to shore at about 11pm and went home.

Police have said the third man thought the other two would return later.

The third man, and a partner of one of the missing men, did their own search before reporting the matter to police on Wednesday morning.  

A truck owned by the two missing men had been parked by the mouth of the passage since they went missing and was photographed by Cook Islands News at the site on Thursday.   

On Friday police spokesman Trevor Pitt said concern was now at the “serious end after so many days”.

While police had scaled back search efforts on Friday, two officers combed the coastal area and two volunteer divers took to the water early in the day.

The divers focussed on the passage area while it was reported the clarity of water had improved for a deeper search. 

There were no developments as of last night.

Pitt confirmed a number of people had given statements to police.

Those statements, along with data, including GPS mapping, captured during the initial search are being reviewed by police.

“All the relevant statements taken will be finalised, including the timeline and search area coverage. 

“All statements have to be reviewed as police want to ensure everything is attended to, in order to preserve the detailed incident information.”

In terms of the search effort, Pitt said it had reached a point “where they have covered all the ground, otherwise they are going over the same ground”.

Pitt said he would not speculate on what could have happened. 

“The passage is dangerous, you just can’t go in it at any time, it’s a dangerous rip.

“I’m not privy to what might have happened. I think it is a question of determining what you can do over a period of days, the ocean will do its own thing, if you are not trapped in reefage, you are in open ocean.”

On Thursday it was reported that a pair of gumboots were recovered by divers in the area around Rutaki passage and were identified as belonging to one of the missing men by a relative.

Another gumboot was found and was believed to be owned by the other missing man.

A tui – a tool used to string fish on – was found attached to a float bottle and was also believed to belong to one of the missing men.

Pitt told Cook Islands News on Friday he was not able to share the names of the missing men yet but they were known to the search party.

He could not confirm if the search would continue on Saturday.