A US man missing at sea for more than two months has been celebrating a miraculous rescue after being picked up by a passing ship and airlifted to land.

Louis Jordan, 37, who was reported missing on January 29, told family members he survived by catching fish with his hands and drinking rainwater, the US Coast Guard says.

He was seen drifting on his stricken sailboat - a 10.6m vessel called Angel - about 320km off the coast of North Carolina by the German-registered Houston Express tanker and taken aboard.

A Coast Guard helicopter then took him to a hospital in Norfolk, Virginia.

Frank Jordan, the sailor's father, told CNN he did not know what had caused his son's boat to break down.

In an audio clip released by the Coast Guard, the father asks the son how he is feeling.

"I'm doing fine now," Louis Jordan says.

The son says he was not able to fix the boat and sail it back to South Carolina, from where he departed in January.

He says he worried every day his parents were crying and believed he was dead.

"We were. I thought I lost you," the father says.

US media reports said the boat had capsized and Louis Jordan was found sitting on the upturned hull when he was plucked to safety.