- Kai Sato vanished at sea after his sailboat's mast snapped and engine ran out of gas
- He drifted south for weeks with no phone and no food, surviving on oatmeal and debris
- Sato repaired his boat using PVC pipes and paddles to stabilize and steer it back
A 39-year-old Californian who vanished in the Pacific for more than a month has been rescued alive after his boat drifted hundreds of miles toward Hawaii, the New York Post reported. Kai Sato set sail from Catalina Island on June 7 aboard his sailboat. But two weeks into the trip, the mast snapped, the engine ran out of gas, and his phone died. Adrift and out of the main shipping lanes, the report mentioned that Sato was left "like a sitting duck" as currents carried him south.
"I cried for a whole week, just drifting south, like miserable," Sato told Hawaii News Now. "I felt like I was going to just try to turn my motor on and just suffocate, to kill myself."
He also said that he felt like a "sitting duck, just getting taken south by the current going way off course".
But after five days, he decided to fight. He used PVC pipes and kayak paddles to repair the boat and stabilise it.
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Surviving at sea without any food
As per the report, Sato didn't have any food. He survived on leftover oatmeal and whatever landed in his boat.
"I was just licking that to survive," he said as quoted.
Here's how he was rescued
It took nearly a month to steer back toward the California-to-Hawaii shipping lane. On Tuesday, a passing container ship, the Pasha Hawaii, spotted Sato's damaged sailboat. Incredible footage Sato recorded shows the snapped mast and waves battering the tiny vessel.
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The crew members made two attempts to lower a rope ladder. Once aboard, Sato was given clothes, fruit, and water after weeks of rationing.
"Oh my God, yeah, like ecstatic... I was crying and so happy," Sato said as per the outlet. "They were so good to me, those guys."
