CLEARWATER, Fla. — Two people and a dog are safe after they were rescued by crews with the U.S. Coast Guard Saturday morning off Hernando Beach when the sailboat stopped working.
At around 11 a.m., crews received an alert regarding the two people in distress, the Coast Guard said in a news release.
Watchstanders with the Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg sent an aircrew on a helicopter to rescue the people and their dog, who were located about 90 miles off Hernando Beach.
A porthole of the sailboat broke and water got inside of it, damaging some of the electronics, officials say.
A video provided by the USCG shows crews attaching a rope to a raft where a man and a dog sat to be rescued. The rope then lifts the man and his pet to the helicopter and are given a towel.
"A DSC alert allows mariners to instantly send an automatically formatted distress alert to the Coast Guard or other rescue authority anywhere in the world," Lt. Connor Sullivan, command duty officer of Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg, said in a statement. "Due to the reported water ruining the system, this alert gave us their last known position and allowed us to investigate because the owners registered it to their equipment."
Officials say they are working to rescue parts of the sailboat.