Three rescued from Jaws-like boat attacks

Three people on board an inflatable catamaran in the Coral Sea off northeast Australia have been rescued after it was damaged from shark attacks, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said yesterday.

Photos and a video on the authority's website showed a large part of the stern of the yacht torn away.

"The vessel departed from Vanuatu and was bound for Cairns when contact was established. Both hulls have been damaged following several shark attacks," it said.

Rescue crews responded to an emergency positioning beacon registered to the Tion, a nine-meter inflatable catamaran on a round-the-world expedition, early yesterday. The yacht was located about 835 kms southeast of Cairns in the Coral Sea.

A Panama-flagged vehicle carrier successfully conducted the rescue.

The three sailors - two Russians and one French citizen - are due to arrive in Brisbane today, it said.

The three men on board the boat were unharmed, said Anna Kosikhina, a spokeswoman for the voyage, which she said was aimed at promoting Russia and Siberia and began two years ago.

"They were all intact. Nobody is hurt," she said.

"The only thing is that the balloons of the inflatable catamaran were blown away."

This was not the first accident on the voyage, Kosikhina said, with the steering device of a previous vessel failing between Chile and Easter Island. The crew continued the expedition on an inflatable catamaran by the same manufacturer that had been stored on the island for several years.