Navy rescues distressed foreign pleasure craft

Sri Lanka Navy, in coordination with the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) Colombo, rendered assistance to bring ashore a non-motorised pleasure craft in distress off the southern coast on Thursday, the Navy said.

The pleasure craft ‘Little Donkey’ belongs to New Zealand was on a marine research as it ran into a defect in its pedal based rowing system.

Accordingly, the craft with two foreign crew members aboard were safely towed to the Port of Hambantota to fix the issue, the Navy said.

The pleasure craft with 02 crew members has developed a defect in its pedal based rowing system whilst crossing the Bay of Bengal from Thailand, to collect high quality microbiological samples for DNA analysis, to support some research work.

The craft was in distress in the SRR of Sri Lanka off the southern coast, when a distress message was disseminated to MRCC Colombo by the local agents March 2, requesting the towing assistance from the Sri Lanka Navy to bring the craft ashore for repairs.

At the directives of Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Priyantha Perera, the Navy rushed a Fast Attack Craft P 483 of the 04^th Fast Attack Flotilla in the Southern Naval Command to the sea area where the craft was in distress. Subsequently, P 483 set about towing the beleaguered craft with 02 crew members to the Port of Hambantota for much-needed repairs by the dark hours of March 2.