A St. Catharines man is lucky to be alive after a weekend boating mishap on Lake Ontario.
On Friday, the coast guard was notified that a man sailing his 40-foot sailboat from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Mimico in Toronto was overdue to his destination.
A joint rescue operation was launched using aircraft and helicopters and a coast guard crew from Port Weller, as well as auxiliary units from Toronto, Pickering, Oakville and Grimsby.
Shortly after the search began a Coast Guard crew located the vessel, adrift with no persons on board.
The sailboat was without its dinghy.
Around 2 a.m. Saturday morning a helicopter spotted the man clinging to a dingy with his life jacket on.
The coast guard's fast rescue boat proceeded to the location and rescued the man who was promptly taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia.