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3 teens rescued after 50 days at sea
Source: Agencies |
November 27, 2010, Saturday
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THREE teenage boys who spent 50 days adrift in a tiny boat in the South Pacific walked ashore on shaky legs yesterday after a chance rescue.
The trio - Samuel Pelesa and Filo Filo, both 15, and Edward Nasau, 14 - told rescuers they survived on rainwater a handful of coconuts, raw fish and a seagull that landed on their 3.5-meter long aluminum boat.
The boys set off on October 5 from their home island on New Zealand's northern-most point, Atafu atoll in Tokelau, to another nearby. It's not known how they went missing, but the outboard motor may have broken down at?sea.
Worried family members reported them missing and the New Zealand air force launched a sea search. No sign was found, and their village of 500 people held memorial services, expecting never to see the boys again.
They were picked up on Wednesday by a fishing trawler, undernourished, severely dehydrated and badly sunburned. The ship's first mate said the area they were in is way off any normal commercial shipping routes.
They drifted 1,300 kilometers from where they set out in Tokelau, a bucolic collection of coral atolls north of Samoa that is New Zealand's territory.
A Fiji navy patrol boat met the trawler yesterday and escorted it into the harbor of its capital, Suva. The teens were met by New Zealand consular officials and taken directly to a hospital for medical checks. Looking thin, the three walked off the boat without speaking to reporters.
Tai Fredricsen, first mate aboard the tuna boat San Nikuna, said a crew member spotted a small vessel bobbing in the open sea northeast of Fiji on Wednesday. "We knew it was a little weird," he said.
As it edged closer to investigate, the crew saw three people aboard waving frantically and stopped to assist.
The rescue came not a moment too soon: Fredricsen said they had begun to drink sea water because it hadn't rained in the past few nights. He said the tuna boat's crew had given the boys small portions of fruit and fluids as they could not keep solids down.
The trio - Samuel Pelesa and Filo Filo, both 15, and Edward Nasau, 14 - told rescuers they survived on rainwater a handful of coconuts, raw fish and a seagull that landed on their 3.5-meter long aluminum boat.
The boys set off on October 5 from their home island on New Zealand's northern-most point, Atafu atoll in Tokelau, to another nearby. It's not known how they went missing, but the outboard motor may have broken down at?sea.
Worried family members reported them missing and the New Zealand air force launched a sea search. No sign was found, and their village of 500 people held memorial services, expecting never to see the boys again.
They were picked up on Wednesday by a fishing trawler, undernourished, severely dehydrated and badly sunburned. The ship's first mate said the area they were in is way off any normal commercial shipping routes.
They drifted 1,300 kilometers from where they set out in Tokelau, a bucolic collection of coral atolls north of Samoa that is New Zealand's territory.
A Fiji navy patrol boat met the trawler yesterday and escorted it into the harbor of its capital, Suva. The teens were met by New Zealand consular officials and taken directly to a hospital for medical checks. Looking thin, the three walked off the boat without speaking to reporters.
Tai Fredricsen, first mate aboard the tuna boat San Nikuna, said a crew member spotted a small vessel bobbing in the open sea northeast of Fiji on Wednesday. "We knew it was a little weird," he said.
As it edged closer to investigate, the crew saw three people aboard waving frantically and stopped to assist.
The rescue came not a moment too soon: Fredricsen said they had begun to drink sea water because it hadn't rained in the past few nights. He said the tuna boat's crew had given the boys small portions of fruit and fluids as they could not keep solids down.
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