At midnight on Friday, Captain Tran Van Cuc’s fishing boat suffered engine failure whilst fishing about 66 nautical miles northeast of the Da Nang coast.

The crew members were unable to make repairs, their food and fresh water reserves were nearly exhausted, and no other fishing boats were operating nearby to give assistance.

Mr Cuc said that the boat had set sail on 6 February (the 28^th day of the 12^th lunar month) and all the crew members had celebrated Tet at sea.

After receiving an SOS message from the boat on Saturday evening, the Zone II Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (Da Nang MRCC) immediately informed the regional and local search and rescue teams and urged them to ask fishing vessels and other ships operating nearby to help the boat in distress.

At 9.45pm on Saturday, the Viet Nam MRCC asked the Da Nang MRCC to send rescue ship SAR 274 to the scene.  At 2.20am the next day, the rescue ship reached the fishing boat.  At 2pm on the same day, the fishing boat was towed back to Da Nang and all the crew members are safe. 

Fishing boat QNg 94499TS (Photo: internet)