KEY POINTS:
An American yacht cruising the South Pacific has saved two fishermen whisked away in their disabled boat from Niue Island by strong offshore winds.
Niue is 565km from its nearest neighbour, Tonga, and as the tiny island dipped low on the horizon, 17km away at dusk, fishermen Patrick Jacobsen, 54, of Niue, and Felix Tafatu-Hipa, 48, of Sydney, thought they were goners.
The outboard on their 5.5m open boat had broken down 10 hours earlier.
Their auxiliary and radio telephone would not work, and they had less than half a litre of fresh water and no flares.
The pair's outlook looked bleak until they spotted Traveler, a 15m cruising yacht on its way from Niue to Tonga.
Using cloth, oil and petrol on the end of a rod, the fishermen conjured up a makeshift flare in a desperate bid for rescue in the gathering gloom.
Barbara Burdick, from Newport Beach in California, was talking to her partner Michael Lawler in their yacht's cockpit on Wednesday when she spotted the flare's unusual light 4km away.
They took a bearing and as darkness fell found the hapless fishermen.
At the request of search and rescue officials in Niue, the yachties towed the grateful men back to Alofi, the island's main town.
Police chief Ross Ardern said the fishermen were extremely lucky to have been found.
- NZPA
