THREE castaways have been rescued from a remote Pacific island after using palm fronds to spell out the word “Help” on the beach.

    The mariners had set off April 4 on what should have been a three-hour sailing trip, but their tiny vessel was overtaken by swelling waves.

    The sailors were heading to Weno Island, a Micronesian atoll in the state of Chuuk where they’re from, from Pulap.

    Four nautical miles into their trek, a wave capsized their flat-bottomed boat, according to the New York Daily News.

    The three men were forced to swim two miles (3.22 km) to shore at night, said Chief Petty Officer Sara Mooer, a spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard.

    The Coast Guard was alerted when the men failed to turn up for a flight they were supposed to catch from Chuuk, in Micronesia in the central Pacific.

    Four ships, which used radar to track the lost sailors’ route, were deployed.

    Among them were the automated mutual-assistance rescue vessels (AMVER) Brilliant Jupiter and Ten Yu Maru, which conducted a combined 17 hours and searched 286 km of track-line looking for the men.

    “Our combined efforts coupled with the willingness of many different resources to come together and help, led to the successful rescue of these three men in a very remote part of the Pacific,” Lt. William White, Sector Guam public affairs officer, said in a statement.

    The men spent three days fearing they would never see their loved ones again as they remained stranded on Fanadik Island, one of more than 600 islands of the Federated States of Micronesia.

    The group decided to use the age-old tactic of writing “HELP” in palm fronds — and it worked.

    A Navy P-8 aircrew launched at 6 a.m. Thursday to assist in the Coast Guard’s search.

    The trio or sailors were spotted by the Navy P-8 aircrew operating out of Misawa Air Base in Japan just two hours later.

    Petty Officer First Class Michael McCandless said, “They had the word ‘help’ spelled out and were waving their lifejackets.”

    The men were rescued Thursday night, and were transported to the island of Pulap. They are all said to be in good spirits.

    Mooer said that the U.S. Coast Guard carried out seven separate search and rescue missions in the area since March 28.

    (SD-Agencies)