The skipper who was plucked out of treacherous seas after a 20-hour battle for life has told how he tried in vain to save his two fishermen colleagues.

Robert (Bobby) Lambe Jr., who was picked up by US Navy's hospital ship USS Comfort on Wednesday afternoon after his boat sank off the coast of Bermuda, made an emotional telephone call to his family from the warship yesterday.

Recovering from hypothermia and exhaustion, and still attached to an intravenous drip, he explained the events that led up to the sinking of his boat New Nuts, and the deaths of his crewmen Alan Edness, 56, and Micah Battersbee, 29.

Last night the wife Mr. Edness, Katherine, was surrounded by friends and family at their St. Anne's Road home in Southampton.

But she said she was too upset to talk. The couple have a 13-year-old daughter.

She had said earlier yesterday: "I'm still hoping."

And the Battersbee family coped with their loss, including telling his six-year-old son and considering a memorial service on the ocean.

"He would have definitely wanted to have died at sea," said Caroline Burgess, Mr. Battersbee's aunt. "He loved the water. We were thinking today that we would like to go out to sea and have a memorial service.

Of his son Bobby, Mr. Lambe Sr. said: "I spoke to him this morning - he was still hooked up to the drip," said his father Robert Lambe Sr.

"He is very downhearted because he just lost two of his best friends, so he is not in good spirits.

"They were all sitting side by side in the cabin, above the deck. All of a sudden, the boat rolled over. Bobby managed to get out through a hatch there, but nobody else got out.

"He managed to climb on top of the boat, when it was still overturned, and he was banging and shouting and hitting on the hull and everything. He was shouting to his friends.

"But no one shouted back. He didn't hear anything at all. Eventually, he got washed off the boat, and then it sank. It's pretty hard to imagine what it must have been like. You see it in the movies, but to live it, you can't imagine."

Mr. Lambe Sr. said he did not know why Mr. Edness and Mr. Battersbee were unable to make it out of the cabin, too, but he said it would be a much more difficult task than one could believe.

"In a boat that is upside down and at night time, when it is very dark, you could not possibly know what the feeling is like," he said.

"I have read about it and I have experienced it (as a fisherman), and it is total confusion. When you are on an upturned boat at night time, you don't know which way is up and which way is down. It must have been very difficult."

Mr. Lambe Sr. said neither he or his son Bobby had any idea how he had survived so long in the water.

The boat overturned at about 6.30 p.m. on Tuesday, when they were about 80 miles northeast of Bermuda, as they made their way back to the Island in worsening weather conditions.

A freak wave hit the boat, causing it to roll, and about 20 minutes later it sank.

The senior Mr. Lambe said his son had told him that he managed to grab hold of a piece of the boat, which helped him to stay afloat throughout his night and day in the cold waters of the North Atlantic.

However, he said a US Coast Guard C-130 search and rescue aircraft flew over him no less than eight times before it finally spotted him floundering in the high seas just before midday on Wednesday.

He was thrown a life raft, which he was able to climb into, and the Comfort, which had left Maryland on Monday and was en route to the Persian Gulf, then diverted to pick him up.

Mr. Lambe Sr. said: "He was hanging on to a piece of the boat and he said he had the white side of it facing up.

"The search plane obviously couldn't see it because all the water was white. When the aircraft didn't see him, he turned the board over, where it was blue. It seemed to make the difference because they spotted him soon afterwards."

Scott Simmons, from Rescue Co-ordination Centre Bermuda/Bermuda Harbour Radio, said throughout the ordeal, Bobby had had the presence of mind to stay calm and preserve himself.

"He grabbed a hold of part of the cabin top that was floating nearby and he was able to use that as a life raft to keep him afloat, so he was not subject to the full effects of the water temperature.

"He said he came off many times during the night and was constantly flipped over by the waves, but he held on, then in the morning he saw the (first) aircraft looking for him.

"He was encouraged by all of this, and finally he was spotted and they dropped the life raft and he was much better and it was warmer for him.

"The plane was quite close to him and he didn't have far to swim to get to the raft, but given he was in the water for so long (it was not easy)."

Mr. Simmons said when the aircraft had failed to spot him, he decided to turn the board over.

He added: "He said it was harder to told on that way, but he had decided to try that to get their attention and that may or may not have made the difference.

"It gives you an insight into his thinking from a survival standpoint that he was focusing on how they could see him.

"Under the circumstances, with the time in the water, the weather conditions, and the reports from the US Coast Guard and the ship, he was very fortunate, there is no question of that."

Yesterday, Bobby was still receiving medical treatment on board the medical ship, but he is unlikely to be discharged any time soon.

Because of its mission the US Comfort would not divert to Bermuda to return Bobby to his homeland, so, instead, he must continue on with the vessel until it makes its first port of call.

But his father said, when that would be, or where it would be, he did not know.

He added: "He seems to be progressing well, but we have no idea when we are going to see him. Everyone knows where the ship is ultimately going, but we don't know where it is heading in the meantime. We don't know when we will see him, but at least he is coming home."

US Navy Second Mate David Lieberman said the ship's crew spotted Bobby in the water, despite the 12 to 15 foot seas.

"Mr. Lambe Jr. was treated for minor hypothermia by the staff of the Navy Medical Treatment Facility embarked aboard the ship and is said to be in good condition," said the ship's public affairs officer Petty Officer Second Class Ellen Maurer.