Three men were plucked to safety this morning after sharks started tearing chunks from their inflatable catamaran as they attempted to sail to Australia.
The men, two Russians and a French citizen, were picked up by a cargo ship while floating in the shark-filled Coral Sea some 800km southeast of Cairns.
"Both hulls of the vessel have been damaged following several shark attacks," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said in a statement.
The authority said the trio had planned to sail from the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu to the city of Cairns in tropical northern Australia, a distance of more than 2,000km.
Check out the video from the search and rescue AMSA coordinated early this morning.
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) September 6, 2023
Remember to always bring a registered beacon with you when you're out on the water - it could help save your life.
Find out more: https://t.co/CI6BO1mfGx#SafeSeas #SavingLives pic.twitter.com/MPhzYNFt9U
They activated an emergency distress beacon in the early hours of this morning.
Footage shot by a rescue helicopter shows the catamaran bobbing in calm seas as it is approached by the hulking Dugong Ace, a vehicle transporter that came to the sailors' aid.
They are due to arrive in Brisbane tomorrow, AMSA said.
The three men were unharmed, said Anna Kosikhina, a spokesperson for the voyage, which she said was aimed at promoting Russia and Siberia and began two years ago.
"They were all intact. Nobody is hurt," she said.
"The only thing is that the balloons of the inflatable catamaran were blown away."
This was not the first accident on the voyage, Ms Kosikhina said, with the steering device of a previous vessel failing during a previous leg from Chile to Easter Island.
The crew continued the expedition on an inflatable catamaran by the same manufacturer that had been stored on the island for several years.
The Coral Sea is brimming with reef sharks and other apex species such as tuna and marlin.
According to the Australian government, it is home to more sharks "than almost any other survey site in the world".
