Three crew members of a Russian sailing expedition were rescued 450 miles south-east of Cairns, Australia, after sharks repeatedly attacked their inflatable catamaran.
The ‘cookiecutter’ shark species, while not usually considered dangerous to humans, is known for inflicting small circular wounds on larger sea creatures with their razor sharp teeth. Some 20-30 of the sharks, which usually grow to no more than 20in long, attacked the soft hull material of the catamaran hulls on two occasions before the crew decided to call for help.
The three-man crew – Russian sailors Stanislav Beryozkin and Evgeny Kovalevsky, and Frenchman Vincent Thomas Garate – initially came under attack on 4 September. Their 30ft catamaran lost some buoyancy, but they were able to continue sailing on their passage from Vanuatu to Cairns for over 100 miles.
However, the crew activated in the early hours of 6 September, shortly after the sharks punctured the second hull of the catamaran
