A California sailor missing in the Pacific for more than a month has been found alive after drifting off the coast of Hawaii.
Kai Sato, 39, set out from Catalina Island on June 7, but about two weeks into the trip his sailboat’s mast broke, his fuel ran out and his phone lost power, leaving him stranded far from busy shipping routes.
Sato said the ordeal left him in tears for days as he began to lose hope, feeling “like a sitting duck” while the ocean carried him farther away from any likely rescue.
Speaking to Hawaii News Now, he recalled: “I cried for a whole week, just drifting south, like miserable. I felt like I was going to just try to turn my motor on and just suffocate, to kill myself.”
He said the current pushed him badly off course, leaving him feeling “like a sitting duck” with little control over where the boat was headed.
After five days of despair, Sato said he forced himself to act, using PVC pipes and kayak paddles to make improvised repairs to the damaged vessel.
To stay alive, he survived on leftover oatmeal along with fish and squid that landed in the boat, while collecting condensation from seawater in a bucket to drink.
“I was just licking that to survive,” he said.
It took Sato nearly a month to get back into the shipping lane from California to Hawaii where he was dramatically rescued by a passing container ship en route to the islands on Tuesday.
Incredible footage he took on board showed his snapped mast and the waves beating down on the tiny vessel as it fought the tide of the Pacific.
A rescue picture, taken from on board the Pasha Hawaii, showed the extent of the damage and the sails floating in the ocean below.
It took the sailors two attempts to lower a rope ladder to save Sato, where he was given clothes and food after weeks living off anything he could find.
He said: “Oh my God, yeah, like ecstatic, you know what I mean? Like I was like crying and like so happy, and then they got me fruit and water, and yeah, they were so good to me, those guys.”
The solo sailor said he is now staying with a relative in Hawaii, but is planning to set off for the Philippines in a larger vessel.
