How Three Fishermen Were Rescued Days After Going Adrift Without Food

                          

Copied from Sky news reports;

Three fishermen have been saved after drifting in the Pacific Ocean for five days without food. The trio had set off from the island of Tarawa on Friday, but their 17ft boat's engine broke down about five miles from shore. With no oars on the vessel, the men tried to break off portions of the boat to paddle back to shore.

 Local authorities began looking for the men before the American Embassy in Fiji requested help from the US Coast Guard on Monday.

Having travelled 2,100 miles from Oahu, in Hawaii, the crew of an HC-130 Hercules found the vessel after searching an area of around 2,800 square miles for two days. Jennifer Conklin, command duty officer at the US Coast Guard's base in Honolulu, said the search had been "challenging". A statement issued by US Coast Guard said the search involved the deployment of four self-locating marker buoys to calculate how the boat had drifted. This led to the search area being extended.

Themen were rescued and transported back to Tarawa where they received a medical evaluation and were released. The men had no food and ran out of water the morning of their rescue.