NSW Police Marine Area Command and Marine Rescue units located the 13-metre vessel in waters off Jervis Bay on Tuesday morning, after the skipper made a distress call to emergency services.

The man, who was the sole occupant of the yacht, first contacted Marine Rescue on Monday night and reported he had lost his tender overboard but was otherwise fine.

‘‘We took a call from him [on Monday night] ... but he said he was fine and was heading north to Broken Bay and he didn’t require assistance,’’ Marine Rescue NSW regional controller Illawarra Bruce Mitchell said.

‘‘Somehow during the night he has lost his motor and all his electrics and he was going backwards.

‘‘We’ve located him [on Tuesday morning] about three and half miles south-east of Cape St George, off Jervis Bay, about two miles south of the position he gave.

‘‘He was virtually at the mercy of the sea; he had no steering, no motor and he didn’t really know where he was because he’d lost all of his navigation gear.’’

At 2.10pm rescue crews were working to remove the man from the yacht, after it began taking on water, and by 4pm they had taken the man safely ashore.

Earlier, Marine Rescue had planned to tow the vessel into Huskisson but those plans had to be abandoned.

Mr Mitchell said it was unclear how the vessel became damaged, but it was possible it occurred when the mast broke.