The Royal Malaysian Navy has lost contact with one of its gunboats off the  coast of Sabah.

Navy chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar in a Twitter posting last night confirmed the  boat with seven crew members was lost during rough seas.

"Three Royal Malaysian Navy ships KD Lekiu (above), KD Paus and KD Serang have been tasked in the search and rescue (SAR) operation.

"The Royal Malaysian Air Force and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency  are also assisting in the SAR operation," he said.

Abdul Aziz  said the lost gunboat carried the pennant number CB204 and  was led by Lieutenant Azri Bakar.

"Pray that they are safe," he said in another posting.

According to Astro Awani, the boat's last known position was at 1.05pm  yesterday at 20 nautical miles northeast of Pulau Mengalum.

CB204 was escorted by KD Paus which had informed headquarters that it would  be turning back to the Kota Kinabalu navy base due to bad weather.

However, KD Paus lost contact with CB204 at 1.05pm, prompting the search  operation.

Meanwhile, Bernama this morning reported that RMN said the combat vessel lost  contact with an escort vessel as it headed to an RMN station on Layang-Layang  atoll off Sabah.

“The CB90 type of combat vessel, assigned to operate from RMN Station Five on  the atoll, lost communication with the escort vessel KD Paus during the voyage,” said Abdul Aziz.

He said in a statement that the vessel, CB204, accompanied by KD Paus, left  the RMN base in Kota Kinabalu at 5am yesterday and lost radio communication with  the escort vessel at 11.15am.

"The incident occurred during bad weather around Pulau Mengalum," he said. -M'kini