This day, the two planes were flying a mission for an inter-agency, DOD-operated task force composed of military and civilian law-enforcement agencies that partner to combat drug smuggling. Picking up a vessel of interest in the water below, the Dome directed the Slick's crew - three pilots, two flight engineers, and four detection-system specialists' to take a closer look.

Using the onboard optical equipment, the Slick's detection specialists could distinguish a battered, medium-sized sailboat floating aimlessly, a helpless sail still attached to what remained of its broken mast. Several large sea birds had made a floating nest of what appeared to be a deserted craft.

The Slick tried to contact the vessel by radio, but got no response. Flying lower and closer to avoid the low clouds and rain, the crew saw what they thought was a person.

The Slick's crew radioed the task force, back in Key West, requesting search and rescue assistance. The task force contacted the USS McClusky, a navy frigate working in the area, about the sailboat in distress.

The McClusky headed for the sailboat and dispatched a rescue crew in an inflatable boat. Reaching the broken craft, the boarding party found 62-year-old Richard Van Pham, a naturalized American citizen from Vietnam, who seemed to think he was fine and refused all offers of help or medical aid. He asked only if the rescue party could help him repair the mast so he could continue on to the California island of Catalina.

But he clearly wasn't fine; the boarding party returned to the ship in the inflatable craft for a vessel inspector, then sailed back to Van Pham to convince him to abandon ship.

It wasn't easy. The rescue party had to do a lot of talking to this man, who still thought he was close to Catalina. But when the vessel inspector declared the ship unseaworthy, and a hazard to navigation, that seemed to persuade him.

During all this, the rescue party learned that Van Pham had set sail almost four months earlier for Catalina Island, only 25 miles off the coast of his home port in Long Beach, Calif. A storm had knocked him off course and high winds had broken his mast.

The boarding party escorted him back to the McCluskey and, with his permission, scuttled his boat.

While recovering on the McCluskey, Van Pham explained that he'd survived by catching rainwater in a bucket and that he'd managed to catch a sea turtle swimming near his boat to cook for himself and to lure sea birds. When the birds landed on deck, he'd throw a net over them and roast them on a makeshift grill, using pieces of wood from his boat for the fire. He explained his survival by saying only that, "If you are scared, you will die."

The USS McCluskey took Van Pham to the American embassy in Guatemala, where the embassy's staff assured his safe return home to California.

The Navy has rightly received a good deal of praise for this rescue, but we think Customs deserves some kudos as well. Had sharp-eyed, quick-witted Customs crewmembers not spotted him, who knows how his story might have ended?

And so recognition goes to Customs pilots Lothar Eckardt, Jim Cornett, and Bill Freehafer; to flight engineers Ed McNutt and Ed Flow; and to detection system specialists Bill Constant, Debora Diaz, Carlos Rivera, and Stan Konopacki.

*The P-3 "Slick" is nicknamed for its streamlined appearance, as opposed to the "Dome," whish has a top-mounted, 24-feet-in-diameter, rotating dish with a 360-degree, look-down radar that can find targets of interest. The Slick has interception radar in its nose cone and sophisticated onboard optical equipment. Missions like these use the so-called "Double Eagle Package," that is, a Slick flying in tandem with a Dome. The Dome flies at a higher altiture and can direct its partner Slick to zoom in for a closer look.