BANGOR, Maine — Coast Guard rescue crews from Station Boothbay Harbor, the cutters Campbell and Ocracoke and Air Station Cape Cod, Massachusetts, saved two people Friday after their fishing vessel sank about 50 nautical miles east of Portland.
Watchstanders at the 1st District Command Center in Boston received an emergency beacon notification from the fishing vessel Jeanne C. around 3:28 p.m., the Coast Guard said in a news release.
Unable to reach the vessel by radio, search-and-rescue coordinators from the 1st District directed the launch of the Coast Guard cutters Campbell and Ocracoke, a 47-foot motor lifeboat from Station Boothbay Harbor and an aircrew aboard an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Cape Cod.
Crews from Station Boothbay Harbor spotted a life raft with two people aboard around 4:30 p.m.
Both people were safely brought onto the motor lifeboat and then taken to awaiting emergency medical personnel at the pier in Boothbay Harbor.
“Their boat sunk right out from underneath them,” Lt. Samantha Leon, the command duty officer at the 1st District Command Center, said.
“They had the proper safety equipment, like the life raft, on board and were able to get in quickly,” she said. “They helped save their own lives.”