Coast Guard: Stranded sailor rescued from disabled boat in rough Long Island Sound

A Brooklyn man stranded on a sailboat with a broken mast in rough seas was rescued from the Long Island Sound Friday night by the Coast Guard near Orient, nearly three hours after his first call for help, officials said.

The 45-year-old, whose name has not been released, set sail from Montauk on his way to Huntington when he encountered the potentially dangerous combination of 5-to-8-foot seas and nearly 35 mph winds off the North Shore, said Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph Stoltz, the lead crew member of the rescue mission.

"It was very rough sea conditions, and with the increased wind condition, it snapped his mast," Stoltz said. "He was just sitting in the seas with no propulsion. It was causing him to take water in the cabin."

His radio system inoperable, the lone occupant on the 50-foot sailboat used his cellphone to call the Southold Police Department at 8:01 p.m., said Petty Officer 3rd Class Frank Iannazzo-Simmons, a spokesman for the Coast Guard.

Police then called the Coast Guard Sector Long Island Sound command center in New Haven, Connecticut, relaying the distress call that the man's boat had lost its mast and was taking on water. The Station New London crew was dispatched at 8:04 p.m., he said.

Personnel at the command center were able to determine an approximate location by communicating with the sailor via cellphone, Iannazzo-Simmons said. The boat's radio system was inoperable because its antenna was in the water.

A Jayhawk helicopter flew from Cape Cod to find the vessel and attempted to lift the sailor out of the sailboat, but the sea conditions prevented that rescue attempt, Stoltz said.

Stoltz and three other crew members launched a 45-foot response boat, which took nearly two hours to reach the distressed sailboat because of the water and air conditions, Stoltz said. Following a broadcast to mariners in the area, asking them to be on the lookout for the distressed vessel, a Good Samaritan located the sailboat and helped communicate their location to the command center, Stoltz said.

After the failed helicopter rescue attempt, Stoltz coordinated a boat-to-boat rescue, which he described as "high-risk" in those conditions.

"We were at the mercy of the seas," Stoltz said. "We were not able to tow the vessel because of the sea conditions, but we thought the best thing to do was to just pull him off and get him to safety."

The sailor was found and rescued about 11 p.m. by Stoltz and his crew, about three miles north of Orient, the northeasternmost tip of Long Island. He was transferred to the rescue boat and brought back to Station New London, Stoltz said. No one was injured, Stoltz said, and the sailor went to a local hotel room for the night.

"He was a seasoned mariner, which definitely helped him stay calm," Stoltz said. "And he was wearing all his safety gear, including his life jacket, which everyone should have on them when they go out on a vessel."

A second broadcast was put out to vessels nearby to keep an eye out for drifting sailboat, as it continued to float in the Long Island Sound. The boat's owner has contacted a commercial salvage company, but the boat, with its navigation lights still on, had yet to be retrieved as of Saturday morning.