
Louis Jordan had gone on a fishing expedition when he encountered rough weather that shattered his mast, leaving him adrift.
A man who was adrift at sea for 66 days has been rescued by a German freighter and brought to shore by the Coast Guard in good condition.
Louis Jordan, 37, had to live off rainwater and fish that were attracted by laundry in order to survive after the mast on his 35-foot sailboat had been ripped apart, according to an Associated Press report.
Just a few hours after he was rescued, he left a hospital in Norfolk, Va., with no obvious illnesses, even though his rescuers were expecting to find a man with severe sunburn and dehydration, according to the report.
Jordan set out on a fishing expedition aboard his sailboat on Jan. 23. He had been living on the boat at a marina in South Carolina.
He encountered some rough weather, which knocked his vessel over several times. He was pulled from the ocean about 200 miles off the coast of North Carolina after successfully waving down a German container ship.
The ship’s operators alerted the Coast Guard, who brought him to the hospital even though Jordan said there was nothing wrong with him.
He said in interviews with various news outlets that he made pancakes out of flour and collected rainwater in a bucket. He also used a net to catch fish that were swimming in an out of clothes that he had hung on the side to rinse.
Jordan’s biggest problem was water, and he said he prayed often for rain to bring him fresh water.
The Coast Guard had been alerted Jan. 29 — 6 days after Jordan left — by his father that he hadn’t heard from his son in a week. Alerts were issued all along the East Coast from as far north as New Jersey down to Miami, and the Coast Guard began search Feb. 8, but abandoned their efforts 10 days later.
Jeff Weeks, the manager of the marine where Jordan lived, said that Jordan was a self-sufficient individual who knew a lot of survival skills, according to the report.
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