Two prawn fishermen from Portavogie, Co Down, were rescued after their boat capsized and sank in the Irish Sea.
Coastguards said their lives were saved by new equipment offered free of charge to the crews of small fishing boats by the North's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) earlier this month.
An emergency positioning beacon linked to a satellite automatically raised the alarm when the boat sank while trawling for prawns four miles north east of Ballywalter.
The coastguard service said the Donaghadee lifeboat was launched, and RAF Nimrod and naval rescue helicopter from Prestwick sent to the search area.
The men were found floating in a liferaft within an hour of the sinking.
He said the sunken fishing boat was less than 10 metres long and both the positioning device and liferaft were among the equipment offered to the crews of small fishing vessels by DARD.
