Four fishermen are recovering today after they were rescued from a liferaft after their trawler went aground on rocks off Hook Head in Co Wexford and began taking in water.
The four man crew of the 15m Coral Strand had been fishing for sprats out of Dunmore East in Co Waterford when they went aground at Garrylough near Duncannon at about 8am.
The crew issued a Mayday alert as the timber hulled trawler began taking in water and they decided to abandon the vessel and take to a liferaft.
The crew were picked up shortly afterwards by another trawler, Boy River which had been fishing in the area in foggy but moderate sea conditions.
Both the RNLI Dunmore East lifeboat and the RNLI Fethard inshore boat were launched and the crew were successfully picked up from Boy River by the Dunmore vessel.
The Dunmore East lifeboat, with assistance from the Fethard Inshore boat, attached a tow to the Coral Strand and lifeboat volunteers went aboard to assess the damage.
However, they concluded that the damage was too extensive to try pumping out water and refloating the Coral Strand and they evacuated the boat which remained on the rocks.
None of the crew from the Coral Strand were injured and they did not have to receive any medical treatment when they were brought ashore in Dunmore East by the lifeboat.
The Irish Coastguard Rescue helicopter 117 from Waterford was also on standby monitoring the rescue operation as was the Naval Service ship, the LE Ciara.
The Irish Coastguard said that Coral Strand will not be salvaged and they expect the vessel to break up leading to some fuel and debris pollution in the area in the next few days.
