A man whose family reported him missing at sea more than two months ago was found floating on the overturned hull of his sailboat 300 kilometres off the North Carolina coast on Thursday, the US Coast Guard said.

Coast Guard officials in Portsmouth, Virginia, said they received word from a German container ship about 1:30 pm indicating they spotted a man and his sailboat approximately 200 miles east of Cape Hatteras.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew from North Carolina flew to the ship and airlifted Louis Jordan to a hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, said Lt. Krystyn Pecora, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard's 5th District office. She said Jordan, 37, had a shoulder injury, but she did not have any additional information about his condition.

Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss said Jordan's 35-foot sailboat had lost its mast and capsized. The tanker crew said it found Jordan sitting on the hull.

Doss said it was not known where or how long the boat had been capsized, but said Jordan told them he ate fish he caught to survive.

"We won't really know what happened to him out there until we talk to him," he said.

Jordan had been living on his docked sailboat at the Bucksport Plantation Marina in Conway, South Carolina, until January, when he told his family he was "going into the open water to sail and do some fishing," said his mother, Norma Davis, of Jacksonville, North Carolina. The family had not heard from him since, she said.

Jordan had spent months sanding and painting his docked 1950s-era, single-masted sailboat in Conway, where marina manager Jeff Weeks said he saw him nearly every day. Jordan was the only resident in a section of about 20 boats docked behind a coded security gate, Weeks said.

Records show that Louis Jordan sailed out of the marina in Conway, on Jan. 23, aboard the sailboat Angel, said Marilyn Fajardo, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard's 7th District. Fajardo said the Coast Guard in Miami was notified by Frank Jordan on Jan. 29 that he hadn't seen or heard from his son in a week. One week later, Davis confirmed their son was still missing.

A search was begun on Feb. 8, but Fajardo said the Coast Guard abandoned its efforts after 10 days. Despite reports from other sailors claiming to have seen Jordan's sailboat, none of the sightings was confirmed.