Royal Navy saves mother and boys from ship capsized by hurricane
A MOTHER and two boys were plucked to safety by a Royal Navy helicopter after spending hours on an upturned ship that capsized “in the teeth” of Hurricane Maria.
A US Coast Guard officer’s video footage released today showed the woman and two 12-year-old boys being rescued. However a British man on board the ship had died.
The group, thought to be a family, spent hours alone in the Atlantic, their boat’s engine disabled, after making a distress call at 11.30am on Wednesday.
By the time help was able to reach them yesterday morning, the man had died and the vessel had overturned and beached about 600 feet from the shore of Vieques, an island off Puerto Rico.
The woman and two boys miraculously managed to clamber out of the 14 6 - f o o t f o r me r oceanographic research vessel in 20-foot waves. They were spotted standing on the upturned boat and were eventually hoisted to safety by a British Navy helicopter.
“We initially got the call — a vessel in distress, a family of four, literally in the teeth of a hurricane,” said Rear Admiral Peter Brown, commander of the United States Coast Guard Seventh District, which includes Puerto Rico.
When the storm finally broke, a radio beacon led the rescue flotilla to the boat, about 50 miles from the site of the original distress call.
The mother was said to come from the Dominican Republic but the names of the passengers, who were recovering aboard a British vessel, were not released.