French fishermen bagged the biggest catch of their lives when they reeled in a Portuguese submarine.
The 220ft navy vessel got tangled in the net of a trawler off the English coast as it was taking part in a training mission.
Portugal’s Armed Forces General Staff said the sub got too close to the boat when it was below the surface about 34 miles (55km) southeast of Lizard Point in Cornwall.
The trawler, Daytona, which is registered to port in northwest France called Saint-Brieuc, was fishing in the area, according to RT.
Blissfully unaware there was an assault sub below them, fully equipped with eight torpedoes and four harpoons, the fishermen plodded along with their work.
The Tridente-class submarine, which weighs more than 2,000 tonnes, got stuck in the net and hit the fishing boat as it tried to surface.
‘The submarine immediately surfaced and made contact with the trawler,’ French maritime authorities said in a statement.
Nobody was injured in the mix-up and somehow there was no damage to either the sub or the trailer, but it did take sailors two hours to untangle the net.
These types of events are not uncommon in British waters, with two incidents last year alone of vessels being damaged or completely destroyed by submarines.
In March 2015, a trawler captain claimed his boat was nearly dragged down by a Russian submarine while fishing off the Scottish coast.
Angus Macleod, 46, was fishing for haddock and skate when he became convinced that a hostile vessel was caught up below his boat Aquarius.
The submarine attempted to free itself, taking the 65ft vessel and his two-ton catch with it.
A month later, another vessel was left badly damaged off the coast of Northern Ireland.
Initially the Russians were blamed for the incident, but in September last year the Royal Navy finally claimed responsibility.
Last month, France’s top judicial court has definitively confirmed a decision to close the case of a French trawler that sunk over a decade ago off the British coast, killing five people.
The Court of Cassation said there was no evidence to support the claim that a submarine was involved, nor that it was a fishing accident.
The entire crew of the Bugaled Breizh drowned when it capsized and sank 14 miles (23 kilometers) off Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall on January 15, 2004.
Many suspected a nearby submarine pulled it under.
Britain’s Royal Navy has previously denied claims that one of its nuclear submarines caused the sinking.
A French TV documentary had suggested the Plymouth-based submarine HMS Turbulent collided with the vessel before it went down.
Original story via Daily Mail
