Three men had a lucky escape early yesterday when their 65ft fishing trawler, the Spailpín Fánach, caught fire and later sank near the Skellig lighthouse off the coast of Kerry.
The men were able to alert the Valentia Coastguard before getting into a life raft. A nearby fishing vessel, the Adrianne, responded to the alert from the coastguard, and plucked the three men to safety.
They were later transferred to the Valentia lifeboat, and brought ashore at Valentia. They were on their way home to Castletownbere last night.
Mr Richard Foran, operations manager with the lifeboat which was tasked at 6.45 a.m., said the three men were extremely lucky.
"The conditions were calm at the time. It was about a Force 3 from the south-east," he said.
The 32-year-old boat was "totally ablaze" in the short time it took the lifeboat to arrive on the scene. It sank shortly before noon.
