<![CDATA[MUMBAI: The Indian Coast Guard rescued 14 persons onboard a fishing boat that went adrift, over 380km off Mumbai, after its engine broke down on September 7. The boat was tracked 10 days later when the CG Dornier, during a surveillance at sea on September 17, got a distress message from the boat while passing nearby .All the 14 crew members hail from Kerala and have been working onboard the distressed fishing boat, Seagull. The boat was towed to the Mumbai shore late on Tuesday . The boat left Mumbai on September 4. However, it faced an engine failure around 200 km off the Mumbai shore on September 7. "There was no communication with the company . Finally , on September 17, I managed to get in touch with the Coast Guard and sent a distress message. We were stocked with food for over a month and a half. But the worry was that the boat was drifting after the breakdown, which happened due to water ingress through the fuel tank," Seagull boat master Abraham Patros said. Immediately after receipt of the distress message, Coast Guard Dornier went searching for the boat and alerted its Mumbai office. "Coast Guard ship Samudra Prahari from Mumbai was directed to proceed to provide assistance to the distressed boat. The ship, braving the extreme inhospitable sea and weather conditions with winds gusting upto 50 knots and visibility reduced to 500m, undertook a thorough search in the area and located the fishing boat on the morning of September 19," told a Coast Guard spokesperson. "The ship provided immediate assistance to the fishing boat and took it under tow," added the official.]]>
