A 14-year-old from Kiribati was rescued after drifting alone in the Pacific Ocean for several hundred miles in a 15-foot-boat that was equipped with a motor which he did not know how to use.

Bwanikatang Tebuanna spent eleven days in the fibreglass boat and ate no food before he was rescued in the Marshall Islands after being spotted by a helicopter pilot. He had been washed out to sea by an incoming tide.

The pilot, who was searching for tuna, also spotted another boat of drifters from Kiribati: three fishermen who had spent 28 days at sea.

According to a report in The Marshall Islands Journal, the teenager was picked up five miles away from the fishermen but they were not aware of each other.

Rescues of drifting fishermen from Kiribati are fairly common in the Pacific, though it is unusual for two boats to be spotted simultaneously.