At 15.52 Falmouth Coastguard was contacted by RNLI Headquarters

reporting that the fishing vessel Levan Mor of Looe, which was fitted

with MOB Guardian, the RNLI's automatic position monitoring system,

had missed a scheduled report and that the vessel had last been

detected approximately 20 miles South of Penzance at 14.26.

Falmouth Coastguard immediately attempted to contact the vessel by

radio with no response and scrambled a Royal Navy rescue helicopter

from RNAS Culdrose and the Penlee RNLI lifeboat. Once on scene the

rescue helicopter spotted smoke and soon after, located a life raft

containing the two crew approximately 4 miles from their last

reported position. The men were winched on board and taken to

Treliske Hospital in Truro suffering from mild hypothermia. Their

vessel had sunk. The Penlee lifeboat subsequently recovered the life

raft and other debris.

The two men are from Looe and the Levan Mor of Looe, which is a 10

metre fishing vessel was working out of Newlyn. This incident has

been the first instance of the RNLI's new monitoring system raising

the alarm for a missing fishing vessel off the British mainland.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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