THREE Englishmen were found guilty on Tuesday of possessing drugs for sale worth $700 million off the west Cork coast last year.They were due to be sentenced on Wednesday this week following the biggest and most sensational drugs case ever tried in Ireland.Perry Wharrie, 48, from Essex, Joe Daly, 41, from Kent, and Martin Wanden, 45, also known as Anthony Claud Linden, of no fixed abode, had all denied possessing cocaine and possessing the drug with intent to supply. All three face up to life imprisonment.A fourth man had pleaded guilty to one charge at the beginning of the trial. Gerard Hagan, 24, with an address in Liverpool, England, admitted possessing cocaine worth more than $20,500. He, too, was to be sentenced on Wednesday.Over 1.5 tones of cocaine was found by chance floating in the water in Dunlough Bay after the boat the men were using to transport it suffered engine failure and capsized.The court heard that some "idiot" had put diesel into the engine instead of petrol.On day 42 of the trial, after deliberating for seven and a half hours, the nine men and two women of the jury unanimously found all three men guilty on all charges.None of the men showed any reaction as the guilty verdicts were handed down.The attempt to smuggle the drugs into Ireland -- some of which was later to be transferred to England via Northern Ireland -- failed on July 2 last year after a stranger, Hagan, scrambled out of the water and up a cliff before running into a farmhouse near Mizen Head in west Cork looking for help for a companion.Hagan claimed they had been fishing when their boat overturned in rough seas.The farmer called the emergency services who saved the man's life, but they also recovered 61 suspicious packages floating in the water around the upturned rigid inflatable boat.Gardai (police), customs officers, local Coast Guard units, an Irish Coast Guard helicopter and both Castletownbere and Baltimore lifeboats were involved in the rescue and in the search of the sea that culminated in the amazing drugs haul.Judge Sen Donnabhin told the jury they had done sterling work above and beyond the call of duty and excused them from further jury service for life.The judge said, "One of the barristers said it was very much a bits and pieces case. I agree with that, whole strands of evidence being brought to court. Your attention to detail was phenomenal."