The captain of a yacht which sank off Bermuda on Sunday spoke yesterday of his fear that his automatic distress beacon was not working properly and he would not be rescued.

The three Russians on the Esperance spent 12 hours at sea in an inflatable life raft and a dinghy after the 35-foot yacht sank around 11.30 a.m. on Sunday, 100 miles north west of Bermuda.

The men were picked up by the Maltese freighter Yucel shortly before 11 p.m. on Sunday and they arrived safely in St. George's at lunchtime yesterday after being transferred onto the pilot boat St. David.

Esperance skipper Nestor Tolstikhin, 54, said yesterday the yacht began rapidly taking on water on Sunday morning and he quickly decided to abandon ship.

An hour after he and fellow crewmen Vitaly Kubatsky, 30, and Grigori Khvecioukovitch, 53, abandoned the yacht to get into a life raft and dinghy, the Esperance had sunk.

A C-130 US Coast Guard plane from Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, spotted the men around 5.15 p.m. and offered to drop another life raft, but the sailors said conditions were fine and they would wait to be picked up by the next passing ship.

Mr. Tolstikhin, a computer programmer who works in Washington D.C., said he took the yacht's automatic distress beacon and VHF radio onto the life raft, but feared it was not sending out signals.

He said the crew, who were coming to Bermuda for a holiday, endured a heavy gale on Saturday night and took on a small amount of water.

“On Sunday morning at about 9 a.m., I was sleeping in the main salon and the guys were in the cockpit when all of a sudden I heard someone screaming about the water on the floor,” Mr. Tolstikhin told The Royal Gazette.

“I jumped from my bunk and saw all this water rapidly coming from the bilge. It was coming so rapidly I could not tell where it was coming from.

“I figured there was not much I could do about it and told the guys to put on the lifejackets and get the hell out of it.

“We grabbed everything we could and that was the end of it. I was trying to think to bring everything we would need.

“We took the VHF radio, an inflatable dinghy and about five gallons of water. The boat sank one hour later right in front of our eyes. I called ‘Mayday' on the VHF radio and there was no response.

“I figured we were too far from Bermuda and there would probably be no ships around. We were there for about 12 hours.

“The conditions at sea were relatively calm with 10-15 knot winds and six-foot swells. I was quite concerned about the distress beacon.

“During test mode, it should have been showing green flashes but during an emergency it should flash red. When I put it into emergency mode, there were short red flashes then green, and it stayed on green.

“That made me very nervous about whether it was transmitting or whether it was on testing mode, and knowing there were not many vessels in the area.

“After about six hours we heard the (C130 Coast Guard) plane but we couldn't see it in the haze and thought thank God it has arrived.

“I went onto VHF frequency and quickly established communication and it was very friendly and nice.

“They offered to drop an additional life raft, but I said we didn't need any assistance, except to get us out of the water. Then it was a lot easier and I got a little relaxed.”

Mr. Tolstikhin said “it feels good” to be back safely on dry land, although he was “a little frustrated” that he had to be taken in by pilot boat.

Mr. Kurbatsky works as a director of engineering with a telecommunications company in Washington and Mr. Khvecioukovitch is a mechanic who works in Baltimore.