A French sailor and his black kitten were saved from the treacherous rocks of the south-west breaker last week by a Bermudian fisherman.

Marcel Huart, a 54-year-old artist from St. Nazaire in France, said he was caught in a storm while travelling from St. Martin in the Caribbean to the Azores.

He turned his boat towards Bermuda, which he previously planned as only an emergency stop, he said.

But huge waves continued to batter his boat, throwing the 22-foot sloop on it's side three times. Water began pouring into the boat's cabin, floating the living space and wetting everything from maps to bed linen, he said.

"I slept without sheets for two days, they were too wet. I was wet, I was cold,'' said Mr. Huart in broken but understandable English.

Bermudian fisherman Allen Bean, on his boat Nothing Easy , discovered Mr.

Huart's damaged vessel as it drifted towards the breaker.

Mr. Bean's friend, Calvin Carmichael, said: "He (Bean) told me he got a line to him (Huart) within minutes of going on the breaker.'' Mr. Carmichael said the breakers would have destroyed the boat.

"The waves would have lifted him up and pounded him as rocks broke up his boat,'' he said.

Mr. Bean towed Mr. Huart to Robinson's Marina near Somerset Bridge and refused any payment for the rescue, said Mr. Huart.

Mr. Carlmichael said: "That's the way fisherman are.'' The French artist said he wanted to buy a gift for Mr. Bean but the fisherman had left in the early morning hours.

Mr. Huart's journey had taken him from France to the islands of Madaire and Cape au Verdre then onto Brazil where he found the kitten.

They pair stayed in Brazil for three months.

He said: "I kept saying I go tomorrow. Tomorrow came, and I'd say `Ah, I go tomorrow'.'' The pair sailed to St. Martin and set sail for the Azores then home to France.

Mr. Huart said: "When I'm very, very old, I don't forget my life. It's about dying with a dream or dying with regret.'' Marcell Huart SAILING SLG