A Northern California man was rescued after his 50-foot boat was struck by a whale while he sailed alone about 40 miles off the western coast of Mexico, authorities said.

The impact from the collision knocked out the sailboat's steering and the vessel began taking on water late Tuesday, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Pamela Boehland said.

Max Young of Sacramento stuffed a mattress into the hole caused by the whale, turned on four bilge pumps and was "trying to bail out water as fast as he could, because he didn't know how long it would take to be rescued," his wife, Debra Young, told The Associated Press.

He also activated an emergency beacon, which alerted the Coast Guard.

"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, and really took a lot of the search out of the search and rescue," said Lt. Charles Kelly, of the Coast Guard.

http://news.yahoo.com/calif-man-rescued-whale-hits-boat-off-mexico-024052627.html

Makes me want to install another bilge pump, just thinking about it.