Sailor who went missing in Pacific Ocean for a month found alive still at sea

A man who went missing trying to sail across the Pacific Ocean has been found alive and well after 30 days lost at sea.

On 7 June California man Kai Sato set out from the Catalina Islands in the hopes of sailing solo across the Pacific, but two weeks into his journey the mast on his vessel snapped and he was suddenly in a great deal of trouble.

The phone he was using to navigate also stopped working, leaving Kai drifting and unsure of where he was, telling Hawaii News Now that he 'cried for a whole week, just drifting south', and the currents meant he ran out of fuel for his boat's motor when he was 500 miles from the Californian coast.

He said: "I felt like I was going to just try to turn my motor on and just suffocate, to kill myself, I felt hopeless.

“I was literally like a sitting duck, just getting taken south by the current going way off course."

Fortunately he was spotted by a container ship and rescued (Hawaii News Now)

Using kayak paddles he got his vessel closer towards shipping lanes and tried to conduct some makeshift repairs of his boat, eating oatmeal along with whatever fish and squid landed in his boat.

However, after 20 days he ran out of drinking water and started using plastic to catch condensation in order to stay hydrated, saying he was 'just licking that to survive'.

After a month lost at sea he got to the shipping lane between California and Hawaii where on 21 July his boat was finally spotted by the container ship M/V George III which rescued him from the waters of the Pacific.

They said: "All hands were called to assist in the recovery of solo sailor Kaichi Sato aboard his de-masted 32ft sailboat approximately 900 miles from Hawaii."

Getting Kai on board their ship, they said the rescued man 'expressed his thanks and gratitude to the entire crew of the George III for saving his life'.

"Oh my god, yeah, like ecstatic," the sailor said as he described how he felt to get rescued.

"I was crying, so happy, they went and got me fruit and water. They were so good to me, those guys."

Kai has since made it back to live with a relative, though his ordeal hasn't put him off getting back out on the water as he plans to sail to the Philippines this time.

He's taking some advice from the film Jaws, since he's decided he's gonna need a bigger boat for that particular trip.

Not to overshadow his tale of survival, but the longest someone has survived while lost at sea is a whopping 438 days, as José Salvador Alvarenga spent over a year of his life adrift in a boat.

He too became lost in the Pacific after staying out too long on a fishing expedition where he was caught in a week-long storm and a flooded engine left Alvarenga and another man, Ezequiel Córdoba, unable to get back to land.

Córdoba died after 10 weeks at sea, while Alvarenga drifted until he reached the Marshall Islands and found people able to help him.