Two prawn fishermen were rescued today after their boat capsized and sank in the Irish Sea.
A full-scale air and sea search was mounted after the alarm was raised when the men, fishing out of Portavogie, Co Down, Northern Ireland, went down.
Their lives were saved by new equipment offered free to the crews of small fishing boats by the North's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) in Northern Ireland this month, coastguards said.
An emergency positioning beacon linked to a satellite automatically raised the alarm when the boat sank while trawling for prawns four miles north east of Ballywalter.
Richard Newell of the Coastguard service said the Donaghadee lifeboat was launched, and RAF Nimrod and naval rescue helicopter from Prestwick sent to the search area.
Within an hour the men were found floating in a liferaft.
He said the sunken fishing boat was less than 10 metres long and both the positioning device and liferaft were among the equipment offered to the crews of small fishing vessels by DARD.
“It obviously saved the lives of these two guys,” said Mr Newell.
A full-scale air and sea search was mounted after the alarm was raised when the men, fishing out of Portavogie, Co Down, Northern Ireland, went down.
Their lives were saved by new equipment offered free to the crews of small fishing boats by the North's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) in Northern Ireland this month, coastguards said.
An emergency positioning beacon linked to a satellite automatically raised the alarm when the boat sank while trawling for prawns four miles north east of Ballywalter.
Richard Newell of the Coastguard service said the Donaghadee lifeboat was launched, and RAF Nimrod and naval rescue helicopter from Prestwick sent to the search area.
Within an hour the men were found floating in a liferaft.
He said the sunken fishing boat was less than 10 metres long and both the positioning device and liferaft were among the equipment offered to the crews of small fishing vessels by DARD.
“It obviously saved the lives of these two guys,” said Mr Newell.
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