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The Coast Guard came to the aid of two fishermen Thursday morning in Nantucket Sound after their vessel's engine room caught fire.

The captain of the 41-foot fishing vessel Jupiter sent out a call for assistance over VHF Ch. 16 at about 8:50 a.m., and the sharp-eyed crew of a commercial aircraft also reached out to the Coast Guard after spying smoke from the vessel from above.

First to answer the call was the Coast Guard cutter Oak, a 225-foot buoy tender, which launched a small boat crew and arrived on scene with fire extinguishers to help the fishermen fight the blaze.

A 42-foot boat crew from Coast Guard Station Chatham and a Hyannis fireboat crew arrived also arrived on scene to assist. After confirming the fire would not flare back up, the Chatham boat crew put the Jupiter in tow to bring back to Hyannis Harbor.

"While Aids-to-Navigation is our bread and butter, the Oak is a multi-mission platform," said Lt. j. g. Stephen Nolan, the operations officer for the Oak. "It's not everyday we have the opportunity to save lives."

No injuries were reported, and the Coast Guard is investigating the cause of the fire. The names of the fishermen and the Jupiter's homeport were not specified.

The cutter Oak is homeported in Newport, R.I., and services more than 100 buoys in New England.

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Jessica Hathaway is the former editor in chief of National Fisherman.

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