TOWNSHIP C — Maine Warden Service officers and a dive team will continue their search Tuesday for two Boston men who disappeared in Lower Richardson Lake on Friday afternoon, Lt. Kevin Adams of the Warden Service said Monday.

Hoang Vo, 26, and Phil Le, 30, disappeared after diving from a rented 14-foot aluminum motorboat, according to Edie Smith, a spokeswoman for the Maine Warden Service. Investigators have determined that the two swimmers had been drinking at the time of the disappearance, Smith said. They were not wearing life jackets.

They were part of a group of 20-25 friends and family members camping at South Arm Campground on the southern tip of the lake.

“We are focusing on the Hardscrabble Island area, 2.7 miles north of the South Arm Campground boat launch,” Adams said Monday afternoon. “Our dive team has been looking for three straight days and has covered, in its  dive search grid, around 70 acres.

“In addition, we have searched another 20 acres with sonar,” Adams said. “We have been searching at depths up to 80 feet and the water clarity is excellent up to around 40 feet, where the water temperature is 63 degrees.”

The surface water temperature at the time was 75 degrees and 3-foot waves were cresting under a west-northwest wind, he said.

Maine Warden Service divers are pulled in teams of two, on short chest boards just feet above the lake’s bottom and 150 feet behind the Maine Warden Service’s motorboat. The divers communicate to the boat driver via radio as they comb the lake bottom at roughly 5 miles an hour, Adams said.

“The morale of the team is good,” Adams said. “We will continue the search.”

Two other occupants of the boat the men dove from notified authorities of their missing companions and the search for them began at around 3:40 p.m. Friday, Smith said. It continued throughout the weekend from the lake, the air and along the shore and islands.

“We are very grateful for the Salvation Army volunteers,” Adams said. “They were here all weekend providing us with food and beverages.”

Lessons to be drawn from this incident, Adams said, are the importance of wearing life jackets when in the water, knowing the area and conditions where you are, and not being overly dependent on a cell phone as a means of getting help. “The cell phone reception up here is spotty at best,” he said.

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