raging seas.

Mr. Herbert Clarity and Mr. Fareed Suraleigh's faith in the US Coast Guard convinced them they would survive after being forced to leave their Bermuda-bound yacht in the mid-Atlantic.

And Mr. Suraleigh claims their struggle to stay alive on a six-foot lifeboat meant they had no time to be afraid.

They were finally plucked from the stormy seas by a Japanese freighter and were expected to reach Ireland over the weekend.

Mr. Suraleigh, 47, of New York, and Mr. Clarity, 63, of Harrison, New Jersey, are both experienced sailors. They set out last Wednesday from New York's City Island in their 30-foot sailboat, Lightfoot , on a 740-mile trip to Bermuda.

On Saturday, about 225 miles southeast of Long Island, they encountered 70-knot winds, 40-foot seas and driving rain.

The Coast Guard picked up their emergency signal and a search plane found them, but the storm made an air rescue impossible. The sailboat capsized as the plane hovered overhead, and the two men got into their lifeboat.

The plane was forced to return to its base as darkness fell, and for several hours the Coast Guard lost contact with the pair.

But another search plane, on its third and final sweep of the area, saw their strobe light, and a Coast Guard jet sped to the site. The Coast Guard 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 men 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 a perilous two and a half hours as the crew tried to rescue the men.

Finally, Mr. Clarity and Mr. Suraleigh grabbed a cargo net swung on a derrick over the side of the ship and were hoisted to safety.

Holding onto ropes as they were pulled aboard the freighter's 35-foot-high deck was the hardest part of the exhausted pair's ordeal.

"I wasn't sure I could hold on,'' said Mr. Clarity. "That certainly would have been the end.'' The men were in good condition but, because the weather was too bad for the Coast Guard to pick them up from the boat, they planned to remain on the freighter during its week-long trip to Ireland and then fly home.

Mr. Suraleigh said: "It's very difficult to be frightened when you have to do something for survival. When you're in a situation and you have to focus, there is no time for fear. Whenever fear enters, you make mistakes and you fail.'' Mr. Clarity added: "We had no great concern. We knew the Coast Guard was going to find us. They rescue many, many people and we had confidence. It was just a matter of waiting.''