Men Survive 40 Days At Sea After Using Door To Replace Rudder

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Talk about being creative in a pinch.

Six men aboard a Russian yacht used a cabin door to help steer the crippled vessel. It sailed -- limped, really -- into New Zealand's Wellington Harbor on Friday after a month at sea with the makeshift rudder.

The crew of the Apostol Andrey was relieved to make land after battling high seas in the storm-tossed Southern Ocean on the disabled 50-foot yacht, skipper Nikolay Litau said.

Owned by a Moscow adventure club, the boat was going around Antarctica when it lost its rudder about 1,306 miles south of New Zealand on March 3, he said.

The crew decided to replace it with the cabin door and try to make their way toward New Zealand, the nearest land.

The crew alerted Moscow's maritime rescue coordination center and it contacted New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Center, sparking several weeks of close communication between the boat, its owners, the rescue center and the Russian Embassy in New Zealand's capital, Wellington.

"Forty days at sea was a little difficult," Litau said.

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