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Round-the-world US sailor in Chilean fishing boat rescue

A US sailor, safely headed toward land after three days adrift on his storm-battered yacht, said on Saturday that he was recovering from the ordeal and planned to fly home to California as early as today.

Ken Barnes, 47, was rescued on Friday by a Chilean fishing vessel after a storm off the tip of South America snapped his masts and rolled his yacht, shattering his dream of making a nonstop round-the-world voyage.

In a brief radio contact on Saturday from the Pesca Polar 1, the trawler that rescued him from the treacherous waters west of the Strait of Magellan, Barnes said "everything is going well."

He said he had "a very accommodating welcome" at the fishing vessel and that "helps tremendously to recover."

Barnes had a good night's sleep -- after sleeping just a couple of hours the three previous nights, said navy Captain Ivan Valenzuela, the maritime governor of Chile's southernmost city.

The Polar Pesca 1 is to take Barnes to the Felix lighthouse on the strait. From there, a navy helicopter is to fly him to Punta Arenas, where he was scheduled to arrive around noon yesterday.

Barnes, from Newport Beach, California, said he expects to fly home as early as today.

In a radio communication on Friday, the sailor said he knew the voyage, which started Oct. 28 in California, would be dangerous.

"Anybody who sails these waters knows the risk that they are taking," he said.

Barnes said that his 13m ketch, Privateer, was hit with winds between 35 knots (65kph) and 45 knots and waves of about 6m to 7.5m.

"The boat rolled 360 degrees. I was inside the boat, if I would have been outside, I wouldn't be here today," Barnes said.

"But like I say, I went around with the boat as everything else did inside the boat. The batteries ended up in the sink, all the tools, the floorboards, one of them came up and broke in half," he said.

The US Coast Guard and Chilean maritime officials received signals from Barnes' distress beacon on Tuesday, minutes after he called his girlfriend on his satellite phone to report he was in trouble. It wasn't until Friday that the Polar Pesca 1, guided by a navy plane, was able to reach Barnes.

"I lost my boat, but I preserved my life," he said.

He was some 800km from the western entry to the Strait of Magellan at the time of his rescue. Valenzuela said Barnes' boat, which he spent years equipping for what he expected to be a six to eight month voyage, had to be abandoned.

"It was badly damaged, its two masts broken, and had also meter-high flooding," Valenzuela said.
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