Riga - Details emerged Friday of a remarkable rescue off the Latvian coast after three Lithuanian yachtsmen spent three days adrift on a breakwater.

All three were rescued Thursday night by the Latvian coastguard after enduring 72 hours of stormy seas and freezing temperatures without food and water trapped off the Latvian port of Liepaja.

According to local media reports, the three Lithuanians were a man, 46, his 22-year-old son and a 20-year-old friend.

After buying the yacht in Sweden, they sailed for the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda on the opposite side of the Baltic Sea, but were surprised by a storm off the Latvian coast and shipwrecked.

After escaping their sinking boat, they scrambled onto a nearby breakwater and attempted to signal for help using a flashlight. When its batteries failed, they tried to signal using lights attached to the breakwater itself, but stormy conditions meant they went unnoticed for three days.

"They were frozen to the bone, pale and wet. They thought nobody would find them," Gaitis Grins of the Latvian coastguard told the LNK TV channel.

It took an hour and a half before the rescued men could speak, such was their condition, officials added, but all three are now in good health. (dpa)