Rescued Russian sailor thanks Aus 'hero' RUSSIAN sailor Sergey Zhukov thought of Kevin Costner when his boat started sinking in rough seas in Bass Strait. He'd seen Costner as a coastguard undertaking high-sea rescues in the movie The Guardian and wasn't scared. Rough seas prevented any vessels and most aircraft from getting to the solo yachtsman on Friday with his rescuers on board a Victoria Police helicopter battling nine-metre waves and low fuel to save him. The personnel only had a 20-minute window to complete the rescue after locating Mr Zhukov in his sinking yacht 220km south of Mallacoota in Victoria before running out of fuel. When he was lowered down to sea level, Leading Senior Constable Brad Pascoe had to compete with undulating nine-metre waves as he hoisted the stranded yachtsman to safety. "We were literally a minute or so from having to abort the rescue and head back inland to refuel," he said on Monday. We were pushed to the top end of limits of what we are capable of. The team touched back down on dry land with only five minutes of fuel left in the tank. Exhausted from two sleepless nights, Mr Zhukov had awoken from a power nap early on Friday morning to find his yacht's mast had snapped and the hull filling with water. After trying to plug a leak for an hour, he activated a distress beacon. He understood how the rescue operation would work from watching The Guardian, he told reporters through an interpreter. He wasn't scared. He was worried about his yacht. Mr Zhukov, whose self-made yacht had made it across the Atlantic Ocean twice, said he understood the operation was dangerous for all involved and called Sen Const Pascoe "a real hero." The experienced yachtsman set out from Portugal in October and had planned to head from the Victorian town of Portland to New Zealand before running into trouble. The father of three said he still wanted to realise his dream of sailing around Cape Horn - the sailor's equivalent to Mount Everest for a mountaineer. "He's still alive and therefore he's looking forward to sailing again," the interpreter said.