hours after they were forced to abandon their boat.

They braved 40-foot seas in the tiny orange inflatable until a Japanese freighter managed to hoist them aboard.

The two men set out from New York last Wednesday in the 30-foot sloop Lightfoot , ready for the 740-mile trip to the Island.

But early on Saturday, about 225 miles southeast of Long Island, they ran into winds of more than 80 mph, heaving seas and driving rain, and sent out an emergency signal.

The coastguard asked the Japanese freighter Shin Kakogawa Maru , which was about 12 hours away, to head to the scene while a search plane was sent out.

The plane's crew found the sailboat, but the storm made an air rescue impossible.

Wind snapped off the boat's mast and as the craft capsized and sank, the two men leapt into the sea and climbed into their six-foot raft.

They drifted for more than eight hours before the freighter reached them. Then in darkness and stormy seas, the raft and the freighter were tossed together for nearly three hours as the crew tried to rescue the men.

Finally, sailors Mr. Herbert Clarity, 63, from New Jersey, and Mr. Fareed Suraleigh, 47, of New York, grabbed a cargo net swung over the side of the ship and were hoisted to safety.

They were reported in good condition aboard the freighter, said chief petty officer Mr. John Chindblom of the Boston coastguard, which coordinated the rescue.

"It's a testimony to their physical fortitude,'' he said. The men planned to remain aboard the freighter for the seven-day journey to Ireland because bad weather prevented the coastguard from picking them up.

Mr. Clarity's wife Betty, who spoke to her husband shortly after his rescue, wasn't surprised that he survived.

"We're very relieved, of course,'' she said. "But my gut feeling was that he was going to make it. He knows what he's doing.''