Cruise ship passengers lined the boat's deck to applaud after three fishermen were rescued from a life raft drifting off England's east coast, while a search for two more missing men continued.
After capsizing at around 2pm on Saturday 25 miles north east of Great Yarmouth, the fishermen’s distress flare was spotted by the Pacific Princess, which interrupted its North Sea journey to go to the stricken men's aid.
The captain of the Princess announced to the cruise ship's passengers at around 6.30pm that the men’s life raft was on the vessel’s starboard side, and within the hour the trio had been helped on board.
Teena Dowd said she and fellow concerned passengers took to the edge of the deck and applauded as the men were helped out of their lifeboat.
The Canadian tourist said: “We were on the very top deck, and people were just sort of holding their breath, everybody was anxious.
“Because we all at the time thought there was only three of them, and everybody clapped when they came on the ship.
“But we didn’t know until a while later, when the captain announced that there was actually two more and we were still searching for them.”
Ms Dowd said a rope was thrown out to the men in the life raft, before a ladder was extended for them to climb up the side of the ship.
An initial attempt by one of the men to scale the ladder proved unsuccessful. Helped by his colleagues, the fisherman was forced to pull back on to the raft before sturdier stairs were eventually put in place.
Ms Dowd said: “Originally they didn’t think we were going to be able to rescue them, the captain announced we were just going to float next to them so they were blocked from the wind until the coastguard got here, but then they were able to get close enough that they were able to climb up our ship.”
After searching for the two further missing fishermen for two hours, the cruise ship continued on to Dover after being released by the coastguard, passengers said.
A rescue helicopter from Humberside, RNLI lifeboats from Gorleston, an independent lifeboat from Caister and other vessels were helping with the search effort.
Lee Duncan, coastguard operations controller for the east coast, said: “The crew of the sunken fishing vessel are all foreign nationals, we know that the three recovered men had been in the life raft for four hours before they were spotted by the cruise ship.
“We believe the two missing crew were seen to enter the water.”
Additional reporting by Press Association
