It looks like past century’s depictions of sailing boats wrecked by giant marine creatures, such as whales, are more real than imagined. What happened to a California man off the western coast of Mexico confirms all the fantastic stories old sailors and fishermen have to tell. The man got rescued after a whale hit his boat just 40 miles off land.

The Associated Press reports about quite an unusual episode. A man from Sacramento, California, had to be rescued after a whale hit his boat. He was sailing by himself some 40 miles off Mexico when a whale collided with his vessel. Late Tuesday, the man had to activate an emergency beacon to have the Coast Guard come rescue him.

U.S. Coast Guard explained that after the whale hit the boat, the man’s vessel began taking water and lost control of the steering. While he was trying to get back on track and make sure he will survive until the emergency beacon would have brought the U.S. coast to him, a merchant ship was directed towards him.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard was still putting together a rescuing plan. Alameda Coast Guard command center’s Lt. Charles Kelly said “His EPIRB delivered an exact position to us, contact information that allowed us to quickly discern the sail plan of and number of persons on the vessel”.

“He was steering the boat and trying to get it back on course” said his wife. “It took him a while to realize he didn’t have any steerage at all. It took him a bit longer to realize he was taking on water” added Debra Young. She said he started the four bilge pumps on the vessel to take out the water, “because he didn’t know how long it would take to be rescued”.

At 4 a.m. in the morning, Max Young was eventually saved by the crew on the merchant ship the Coast Guard directed towards him. He’ll be back in Sacramento next week but he’s going to have quite a story to tell. In all his 30 years sailing and working on boats with his father, Max Young has never had a better story to tell his friends than the time a whale hit his boat.