Boat adrift for 9 weeks in Pacific

Boat adrift for 9 weeks in Pacific

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AFP): A group of Indonesians who set
out in a wooden sailboat on a one-hour trip ended up nine weeks
later 3,000 kilometers away in Micronesia after a storm destroyed
their sail, the U.S. Coast Guard on Guam said.

Four were in a Micronesian hospital yesterday and nine or more
died during their ordeal -- the second time in a month an
Indonesian boat has drifted to the Federated States of
Micronesia.

Lt. Carl Hinshaw, public affairs officer for the U.S.
Coast Guard Guam, said the 10 meter boat left Manado in Sulawesi
on Sept. 13 and was found Monday 515 kilometers southwest of
Chuuk in Micronesia.

He said the Coast Guard believed those on board only planned a
one-hour trip from Manado to an island. But soon after they set
out a storm hit the boat and destroyed the sail.

A number of people were swept overboard and others starved
during the voyage.

Hinshaw said it was not yet entirely clear how many people had
been on the boat but they believed 13.

He said the area was renowned for the Equatorial Counter
Current which sweeps in many directions, often turning back on
itself.

"It makes it very hard for search and rescue to find anybody."

Hinshaw said five people were rescued by a Taiwanese fishing
boat, the Fong Seong Number 707, but a woman died soon afterward.

The boat sank soon after the rescue.

The surviving man and three females were taken to Chuuk
yesterday morning. Hinshaw said their condition was improving.

On Oct. 23 six Indonesians, including a child, were picked up
after three months adrift. They were on a fishing boat from
Morotai which had spent three months drifting without engine
power. One person died.