‘It Was a Miracle’: Pair Rescued After 17 Hours at Sea : Sailing: Clinging to capsized boat in chilly waters off Malibu, two men sing and talk about family. When their hope and strength nearly fail, a passing boat finds them.

Talk about a wing and a prayer.

Two men spent 17 chilly hours adrift at sea, clinging to the pontoons of their capsized catamaran--passing the time talking, singing hymns and speculating about the impact of their deaths on family and friends--before being rescued Sunday morning, several miles from the Malibu coast.

Jeff Schroder, 29, of North Hollywood and Ivan Magana, 26, of Glendale were cold, exhausted and about out of hope when a boat suddenly appeared in the fog and brought them to safety.

“We cried with happiness and we thanked God,” Magana said Monday. “It was a miracle.”

Los Angeles County Lifeguard Lt. James Richards agreed. He said the pair survived Saturday night clad only in T-shirts and shorts despite water about 65 degrees and air temperatures below 60. Any longer at sea and the men might have suffered hypothermia, their bodies no longer able to keep vital organs warm and functioning, he said.

That a boater on his way to San Francisco saw them that foggy morning was “like finding a needle in the haystack,” Richards said.

Magana and Schroder, who met at a Christian church in Westwood and purchased the catamaran earlier this year, launched the 16-foot Hobie Cat from Zuma Beach on Saturday afternoon. They were heading back to shore when a wave capsized them about 6 p.m. Water that apparently leaked into the mast and pontoons made it impossible for them to right their craft.

They thought a military helicopter flying overhead spotted them, “but after about two hours, we knew they weren’t coming,” said Schroder, an experienced sailor. “The sun had set and we tried rowing back to shore. But after a while, we could see we weren’t getting any closer.”

In the darkness, as the two began to drift away from the lights on the coast, they realized that they probably would not be reported missing until Monday, when they were supposed to report to work.

By dawn Sunday, Schroder said, “it was obvious to us that we would not be able to make it to Monday.”

They spent the night perched on the tip of the triangular pontoons, up to their knees in water. They rationed a single plastic bottle of drinking water. When conversation lagged, they sang. And they fought against sleep, which would have sent them falling into the cold waters.

“We talked about our parents and the people that cared about us, how they would react, and whether we would have done anything differently if we knew it was going to be our last day,” said Schroder, who works as a benefits analyst for the Walt Disney Co.

Porpoises kept them company overnight. The sea glowed at times from the blue phosphorescence of ocean plankton.

Magana, an accountant, said: “I am from El Salvador. I was thinking, ‘Here I survived all the bullets there and now I am going to die in the middle of the ocean.’ At least with bullets, you die quickly.”

At daylight, they made their last effort to right the craft.

“A storm front had come and we couldn’t see land. The waves were starting to pick up and we made a decision to give one last shot at getting it up,” Schroder said. “We did that for about 10 minutes and we stopped. . . . We had lost our direction and we were freezing.”

To warm themselves, they used a car key to cut a piece of the nylon sail to wrap around their shoulders.

By 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Schroder said, “We had done all we could.”

It was about 20 minutes later that they spotted a boat a mile or so away. They tied a piece of sail to their paddle and waved, but it pulled away.

Then another boat appeared, this one only 300 yards away. Schroder tied his bright orange T-shirt to the paddle and waved again. This time it worked.

The boat’s captain, Bob Griffith, of Orinda, Calif., brought them aboard and gave them blankets and milk. A county lifeguard crew took them to the Malibu pier and they were driven to their truck. But the adventure was not over.

“Somebody had stolen a bag that had our shoes and clean clothes,” Schroder said.

The loss seemed a minor inconvenience, though, after what they’d been through. “It’s like we got a second chance,” Magana said.