By JOHN PACENTI
 Associated Press Writer 

 MIAMI (AP) — The last radio message from the schooner Fantome told of 115 mph winds, part of the fury
 of Hurricane Mitch. A few life jackets and a raft were found later, but never any sign of the 31 people
 aboard. 

 Relatives of the victims, all crew members, have filed five lawsuits in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court
 seeking in excess of $1 million per family from Windjammer Barefoot Cruises Inc. 

 Relatives of the victims — from Honduras, Antigua and Guyana — accused cruise line officials of sending
 the crew of the 282-foot boat on a suicide mission that put corporate well-being ahead of lives. 

 ``I can't imagine anybody being more callous than to put the fate of the ship over the fate of men,'' said
 attorney William Huggett, who filed the suits last week and Tuesday. ``My God, why didn't they just
 beach the ship and get the men off?'' 

 Windjammer has said it did everything it could to save the crew. 

 More lawsuits were expected. 

 Contact was lost Oct. 27 with the four-masted tour schooner, the flagship of Miami Beach-based
 Windjammer's cruise fleet. No tourists were on board the ship, once owned by Aristotle Onassis. 

 The 71-year-old Fantome, French for ghost, reported waves as high as a five-story building and was listing
 at 40 degrees. Rescuers gave up their search Nov. 5 after finding only scattered debris. 

 As the storm approached, Fantome was ordered from the Honduran port of Omoa to Belize City, Belize, to
 drop off its 110 passengers and nonessential crew. 

 After that, the company had hoped the ship could sail north toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula but was
 afraid the vessel, which travels at a top speed of about 9 mph, couldn't outrun the hurricane. 

 Instead, the ship headed south toward Honduras in hopes of slipping in ahead of the monster storm. But
 Mitch stalled and the Fantome tacked east and west, hoping to take refuge behind islands off Honduras. 

 In the end, the ship was about 40 miles south of the storm's eye. 

 ``The owner and the captain of the Fantome carelessly and with incredible negligence drove the ship
 directly into the approach of a known hurricane of extraordinarily high winds,'' Marsha Elizabeth King,
 widow of Jerry King, alleges in her suit. 

 Huggett said Windjammer's action was ``corporate greed'' to protect a ship worth at least $10 million. 

 James Canty, vice president of corporate development for Windjammer, said it is a standard practice for
 ships to ride out storms and felt the company directed the ship correctly. 

 ``We believe these are false accusations from a self-serving personal injury attorney,'' Canty said.

 NEW AMSTERDAM, Guyana (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard gave up. The owners of the yacht gave up. But the
 people of this town are holding nightly vigils, refusing to lose hope for 11 native sons aboard a tourist yacht
 that tried to outrun the unpredictable Hurricane Mitch. 

 Many in New Amsterdam, a town of 30,000, cannot or will not accept the sailors as lost. ``They must have
 gotten to Central America, somewhere,'' said the wife of a missing sailor who refused to give her name. 

 As Hurricane Mitch approached, the Fantome, a four-masted, 282-foot schooner, safely dropped off its 100
 passengers in Belize City. 

 The crew stayed on the ship, planning to head north toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to get away from
 Mitch. But the storm changed course, and the ship was caught. 

 The Fantome's last radio message said it was experiencing 115 mph winds and the ship was rolling,
 Windjammer officials said. 

 ``It is pretty much confirmed that the ship is not there any more,'' said James Canty, vice president of
 corporate development for Windjammer Barefoot Cruises Inc. of Miami. 

 The Fantome, the pride of the Windjammer fleet, was built in 1927 for the Duke of Westminster and bought
 in the 1950s by Aristotle Onassis as a wedding present for Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco. He
 never delivered it, though, because he wasn't invited to the wedding. 

 Canty, when asked whether he thought the Fantome's 31 crew members had perished at sea, said: ``As much
 as I hate to say it, yes.'' 

 In New Amsterdam, many relatives had a hard time believing that. They clung to the hope that the men had
 made it to land in Central America. 

 Hundreds gathered at the town hall Friday night, more than 24 hours after the U.S. Coast Guard abandoned
 the search. Mayor Errol Alphonso said he expected hundreds more today. 

 Amid the hymns, prayers, sobs and wails, a few attempted to deal with the worst possibility. 

 ``They could probably be down at the bottom of the sea because they have searched and they can't find them.
 Where else could they be?'' said a distraught Marcelle August, wife of crewman Colin August and mother of
 their two children. 

 Hours after it was announced that the search had been called off, Windjammer flew two representatives to
 meet with relatives in New Amsterdam and another dozen countries of crew members. 

 August said Windjammer was paying families two months salary and had promised to set up a trust fund for
 the children of crew members. 

 Four Coast Guard planes and a British warship searched for the schooner for a week. The Coast Guard said
 that it had covered more than 145,000 square miles. 

 A life vest was found Monday. In the end, there were two areas of debris off the Honduran coast, including
 portions of a wooden staircase and blue tarpaulin from the boat. 

 But no bodies were found. 

 ``If in fact the Coast Guard has given up, it is my very strong view that they gave up too early,'' Alphonso said
 as he left the vigil Friday night. 

 Despite his fears, Canty also said he was hopeful. 

 ``I think there's always hope. Personally, I have hope and I think many people here have hope,''
 Windjammer's Canty said in Miami. 

 MIAMI (AP) — The week-long search for a Windjammer yacht that disappeared during Hurricane Mitch with
 a crew of 31 was called off today. 

 Contact was lost Oct. 27 with the 282-foot Fantome, a four-masted tour schooner and the flagship of Miami
 Beach-based Windjammer's cruise fleet. The ship was nowhere to be found off the Caribbean coasts of Belize,
 Guatemala or Honduras. 

 Windjammer officials were meeting this morning and did not comment immediately. No tourists were on
 board when the ship got caught up in the unpredictable storm and disappeared. 

 The Fantome's last radio message said it was experiencing 100-knot (115 mph) winds and the ship was rolling,
 Windjammer officials said. 

 Search crews found the first piece of debris from the Fantome on Sunday, the Coast Guard said. A life raft and
 several more lifejackets were found Monday. 

 Coast Guard aircraft and the HMS Sheffield searched an area the size of the state of Montana looking for any
 survivors from the ship. 

 As Mitch approached, Fantome was ordered from the Honduran port of Omoa, north to Belize City, where it
 safely dropped off its 100 passengers to be flown back to Miami. 

 The crew stayed on the ship, planning to head north, toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, to get away from
 Mitch. But the storm changed course and the ship was caught. 

 Built in 1927 for the Duke of Westminster, the Fantome was bought in the 1950s by Aristotle Onassis as a
 wedding present for Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco. He never delivered it, though, because he
 wasn't invited to the wedding. 

 The Coast Guard said 11 crew members were from Guanaja Island, four each from Grenada and St. Vincent,
 three from Jamaica, two from Honduras and one each from Nicaragua, St. Lucia, Panama, Trinidad, Antigua,
 Romania and England.