Two sailors headed from Honolulu to Unalaska were rescued by the Coast Guard Sunday night. Lydia and Bill Ludgate have been sailing around the Pacific for three years, trying to retrace Captain Cook’s voyages. The rudder on their 50-foot sloop broke about 500 miles south of Unalaska.

“If the wind was in the right direction, we could sail north, but if the wind was in the wrong direction, we just had to sit," Bill says. "51༠40N is etched onto my memory cells because we sat on 51༠40 for about five days, waiting for the wind to change, just bobbing up and down.”

The couple made it within 12 miles of Unalaska Island before realizing they weren’t going to be able to navigate into port without help. Lydia says they put out a number of distress calls before reaching anyone.

“Suddenly the Alex Haley responded - we didn’t know who they were, but they responded - the fact that we were talking to somebody was such a relief, because we were really getting quite worried.

”Not only was their sailboat unsteerable, their generator had died three days out of Hawaii, leaving them with limited food options.

"We were then down to tins. We've got some tins of hearty soup, and we were sharing."

The Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley towed the disabled boat into port Monday night. After they repair their rudder, the Ludgates plan to sail to Southeast Alaska and then back down the West Coast before crossing the Panama Canal and heading home to England.