Rescued yachtie home for break

The New Zealander who spent 11 days adrift in a liferaft after being shipwrecked off the coast of Vietnam is home for a break and taking the experience in his stride.

Steve Freeman and his Australian skipper, Mark Smith, survived by licking rainwater from their liferaft and drinking their own urine. Their ordeal began when the 20m launch they were ferrying from Hong Kong to Australia sank in a severe storm off the Vietnamese coast on December 6.

Mr Freeman, formerly of Nelson, flew into the city last night and said it was good to be home.

"Seeing my sister and brother-in-law last night at the airport was great. That meant I was really home then," he told National Radio.

Mr Freeman said the experience was "not the kind of thing you forgot in a hurry ... the dreams will go after a while, I imagine".

"We were pretty lucky -- what about those poor blokes that died here, off the coast of Kaikoura," he said, referring to the crew of fishing boat the Mi Jay.

Cedric James, 52, and Wiremu Tawhiti, 53, were found dead in a liferaft off the coast of Kaikoura last week last week. Their skipper, Paul Rees, 52, remains missing.

"There was just me and Mark on the boat and we both survived so, no, there's no dreadful moments," Mr Freeman said.

He expected to be in New Zealand for about a month, seeing family in Nelson, Waimate and Invercargill. He would then return to his home on the Sunshine Coast.

- NZPA