Graham Goff should have been in Barcelona on New Year's Eve, standing on the deck of one of the most amazing boats ever built.

His wife and two children should have been waving him off at the start of a round-the-world race.

Instead, they will be at home in Sussex, reflecting on his dramatic rescue as a member of the seven-man crew of Team Philips.

His dream ended after six hours in pitch darkness as a storm, which sailors are calling The Bomb, raged around the stricken catamaran.

As the crew sheltered in the starboard hull of the vessel and it was tossed around in waves eight storeys high, Graham never once thought that he might die.

The worst moment came when he leapt from the boat to grab a rope ladder dangling from the side of a German container ship which had come to their rescue.

Then, with tears in their eyes, the sailors, led by skipper Pete Goss, watched as their dream craft slipped away, unmanned, into the darkness.

Graham is now back at home in Eastergate, near Chichester, following an emotional reunion with his wife and children Kayley, 12, and nine-year-old Lucy.

Last week, an aircraft was combing the Atlantic 600 miles north west of Ireland to find the catamaran and see if a salvage operation could be mounted.

Amazingly, Graham says if the boat can be repaired, he is willing to sail in it again.

He said: "We were caught in a freak storm which would have wiped out many other boats but it got us through it."

Graham, an experienced sailor, had been involved with the Team Philips project from the start. He was the sailmaker for the huge catamaran.

He became a member of the crew after his company faced the enormous technical challenge of producing sails for the masts of Team Philips, which are as high as ten double-decker buses stacked on top of each other.

His experience in competing in twin-hull races also helped mark him out as a key member of the team, which was assembled to sail the revolutionary wave-piercing catamaran.

Team Philips, the only racing boat to be named by the Queen, grabbed the headlines for the wrong reasons when the bow fell off during trials off the Scilly Isles last spring.

Despite the setback, the crew were full of confidence when they set sail for Barcelona on December 2 in the repaired boat.

Then came the warning by satellite that things could get "a little rough".

Graham said: "We have all heard the term mountainous seas. Well these really were just that."

As cracks appeared in the accommodation pod, the crew gathered in the starboard hull for safety.

Graham said: "We spent six to seven hours in there, bottled up in pitch darkness, but we still managed to maintain radio contact with Pete Goss, who was steering the boat.

"Every five minutes, one of us would put our head out and the waves we saw just defied description.

But there was never a time when I thought I was not going to get home.

"There was always a wave out there which could have turned us over but, even if we had turned upside down, we knew we could have survived. We had our flares, a life raft and food."