Sailors plucked from shark-bitten inflatable catamaran off Australia
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SYDNEY - Three men were plucked to safety on Wednesday 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 south-east of Cairns.
“Both hulls of the vessel have been damaged following several shark attacks,” the Australian Maritime Safety Authority 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.
They activated an emergency distress beacon in the early hours of Wednesday 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.
The Coral Sea is brimming with reef sharks and other apex species such as tuna and marlin.
The Russian Geographic Society said the trio were part of a round-the-world expedition which started from St Petersburg on July 1, 2021, ABC News reported.
A spokesman said the catamaran was attacked by cookiecutter sharks, a small species of the shark family that does not grow beyond 50cm.
According to ocean conservation organisation Oceana, the cookiecutter shark is a parasite. It feeds off larger animals without killing them by using its sharp teeth to latch on to the skin of an animal and scoop out the flesh or blubber to feed.
According to the Australian government, the Coral Sea is home to more sharks “than almost any other survey site in the world”. AFP
