Sailors wash up on Rainbow Beach

The Sunshine Coast's wild weather has claimed more victims, with 18 sailors from a beached Indonesian Navy training vessel discovered near Rainbow Beach.

The storms off the Sunshine Coast have claimed another victim with 18 Indonesian soldiers washed up near Rainbow Beach.

The Sunshine Coast's wild weather has claimed more victims, with 18 sailors from a beached Indonesian Navy training vessel being discovered on a road near Rainbow Beach.

The 34.9 metre tall ship, Arung Samudera, was en route to Sydney from Darwin and was soon to stop at Brisbane when it ran into bad weather north of the Sunshine Coast.

Police said the ship ran aground but was still intact.

The training vessel came in about five kilometres north of Rainbow Beach. It will be pounded by heavy seas as the tide comes in.

ABC Radio this morning reported the men were found by local man Bob Elmer.

Mr Elmer told ABC he found the men on a road behind the beach wet and shivering but looking relaxed.

The men told him they were Indonesian and were travelling on a boat from Cairns to Brisbane when their boat broke down.

"There were about a dozen people standing on the road and from what I could understand - and I'm not real good at listening to Indonesians talk - they said they were coming from Cairns to Brisbane and broke down and washed up on the beach," Mr Elmer said.

"We've just been trying to organise the police and the SES to help."

The southern area of the Queensland is being lashed by huge seas and high winds whipped up from a low moving slowly north.

The sailors, wearing life jackets and speaking little English, sparked concerns they were illegal immigrants from a fishing boat but the men were later discovered to have been from the ship Arung Samudera.

The Navy boat had already stopped in Darwin and Cairns with its next port of call for Brisbane and Sydney where it was to be part of the ceremonial contingent for APEC.

The sailors have been given new clothes and are holed up at the Rainbow Beach police station while they await quarantine and immigration officers.

KRI Arung Samudera was to join six other tall ships in Sydney on September 2 to mark the start of APEC Leaders Week.

The APEC Tall Ships program takes place until September 9 to showcase Sydney's beautiful harbour and coastal heritage to Leaders of the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Member Economies.

Arung Samudera has been sailing the high seas with a crew of 20 navy personnel from various provinces in Indonesia. The sailing vessel was built in 1991.

In related poor sea conditions, a Sunshine Coast photographer, Gwyn Mason managed to capture a few images of a bulk carrier going out to sea in particularly rough seas. As seen form the beach in Buddina, the vessel is the Cementco, a bulk carrier of 12,076 tons, which is outbound from Brisbane to Gladstone.

Ship in rough seas

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Originally published as Sailors wash up on Rainbow Beach