Rescue services have successfully winched two crewmen to safety off the south east coast after another Irish registered trawler ran into trouble in poor weather conditions this afternoon.
A spokeswoman for the coastguard confirmed that at 5.10 pm a mayday call was received from the 28-metre steel hulled fishing vessel, Renegade.
The two crewmen abandoned ship six miles east of the Tuskar rock near Rosslare. Waterford helicopter and Rosslare lifeboat were despatched to the scene where they found the two men in a life raft and lifted them to safety.
Neither required medical attention. The pair were taking part in the search for missing crewmen from the Père Charlesand the Honeydew II,both of which sank last week.
The Renegade has since sunk and therefore become the third vessel to do so in the area in a week.
Rescue services were already stretched today as they searched for seven missing crewmen from the Père Charlesand the Honeydew.
News of the Renegade's predicament broke soon after it was confirmed that those searches had been called off until tomorrow.
Earlier navy divers reached the wreck the Père Charles, which sank two miles off Hook Head last week with the loss of all five crew.
However, the dives had to be cut short because the Navy service vessel Granuaile experienced trouble maintaining its anchorage, a spokeswoman said.
Divers were prevented from accessing the vessel because the door to the wheel room had been crushed and the vessel was rocking on its starboard side, she added.
Strong tides and poor weather, coupled with today's news of a third boat in distress, may further compromise the search in the coming days.
The five crew of the Père Charles- Tom and Pat Hennessy, Pat Coady, Billy O'Connor and Andriy Dyrin - have been missing since last Wednesday when their ship sank in high seas.
Early on Thursday two other fishermen went missing after the Honeydew II sank 20 miles from the Père Charles.
The search for the Honeydew's skipper, Ger Bohan, and crewman Tomasz Jagla today concentrated on the shoreline and sea off Waterford and Wexford.
Two other crew members from the trawler were rescued from a lifeboat last week.
Debris from the trawler was found washed up near Kilmore Quay in Co Wexford yesterday, about 40 miles from where the vessel sank.
Minister for the Marine Noel Dempsey visited Dunmore East yesterday and met the search co-ordinators and some of the relatives of the missing crewmen.