Yesterday, for the second time in almost five years, the 67-year-old Australian found himself treading water in the middle of the vast Pacific after he was forced to ditch his airplane.

He was there for seven hours before a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 airplane found him about 750 miles south of Honolulu. It was 6:39 p.m. and Clamback was waving at the air crew in the last light of day.

The C-130 crew marked Clamback's position and dropped a raft full of food and survival gear, said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Marsha Delaney. Then Clamback bobbed along for another eight hours before he was picked up at 3 a.m. today by the P&O Nedlloyd Los Angeles, a cargo container ship that the Coast Guard sent to find him.

The captain of the cargo ship said that Clamback was not injured and that he would let the pilot continue on the ship's voyage to Melbourne, Australia.

Clamback, a pilot with more than 20,000 hours of flight experience, ferries aircraft for a living. He and another pilot were flying a pair of Cessna aircraft from Hilo to Pago Pago, American Samoa.

About 11:30 a.m. yesterday, Clamback reported problems and ditched the Cessna 182, Delaney said. His partner watched the mishap from her plane but could not say if Clamback had survived.

For Clamback, it was all too familiar.

In November 1999, Clamback and another pilot were ferrying a new Piper Cherokee from Florida to Hilo when the engine malfunctioned and they had to ditch about 305 miles northeast of Hawai'i.

The men floated in life vests for 10 hours, eventually spotting the green light of a grain freighter bound for Korea. They swam toward the freighter and were plucked to safety.

Just before Clamback was found yesterday, someone at the Coast Guard office in Honolulu remembered the pilot. His name had sounded familiar because the Australian had given the Coast Guard a thank-you plaque.

It's hanging in a hallway of the Coast Guard office. Lucky for Clamback, there's space for another one.