Two men are in quarantine in Cairns after they were winched to safety when their catamaran sank in the Northern Coral Sea on Saturday.
Rescue services reported that the men were returning to Australia from Papua New Guinea when their catamaran ran aground on Bougainville Reef, 200km northeast of Cairns.
They set off flares and deployed their EPIRB, resulting in the QGAir Rescue 510 helicopter being sent to their rescue.
Rescue crew officer Joshua Crouch said the mission posed several challenges.
“With a fair bit of planning on our part, due to the fact that it is such a long-range mission, we flew out, found the two patients and rescued them,” Mr Crouch said. “In the meantime their large catamaran yacht had sunk.”
The men must now spend 14 days in strict quarantine in Cairns, owing to the COVID-19 virus risk from overseas travellers.
