A sailor who spent four days stranded off the coast of New South Wales has told the ABC he feared for his life after a huge wave swamped his yacht.

Queenslander Glenn Ey, 44, hugged his crying mother when he arrived back in Sydney in the early hours of this morning on board a police rescue vessel.

Mr Ey spent days trying to outlast an enormous storm before his yacht was rolled by a monster wave on Sunday.

The vessel was swamped and cracked, with its mast split in three pieces, and was left drifting about 120 nautical miles off Wollongong.

"It all happens very, very quickly and it's most unpleasant," Mr Ey told ABC News 24 this morning.

"One minute you're sitting on the settee inside the boat and then I just smashed into the roof.

"It's very, very forceful. It's a huge wave hitting you. It rolls you over.

"I just dived head-first into the roof, rolled over and then I dropped back down on to the table... a lot of water came in the boat and everything was just floating around inside.

"I put my head outside, the mast had come down and it was broken in three places. There was a real mess on deck.

"I was in deep trouble and you are concerned about your life, there's no question about that," he added.

Sorry, this video has expired Glenn Ey speaks to ABC News 24 ( Joe O'Brien )

"My first priority was to sort out the mast, because in rough seas the mast can puncture the boat very easily. It will just spear the boat and you're going to go down so quick it's not funny.

"I got rid of the mast and all the rigging, that took about 36 hours, then I spent a day bailing the boat out.

"You're looking at surviving. If you don't get rid of the mast you won't survive. It's going to go down in minutes and then you're in the water."

Mr Ey said he only set off his emergency beacon on Tuesday morning after he ran out of fuel. He had jettisoned the ruined mast and had rigged up his spinnaker pole with a makeshift sail.

He was first spotted by a diverted Air Canada plane, some 270 nautical miles off the NSW coast.

Police Rescue boat Nemesis was sent to the scene and reached him in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

On dry land: Glenn Ey arrives in Sydney in the early hours of Thursday morning ( AAP: NSW Police )

It spent 24 hours returning him to Sydney through five-metre waves and high winds in a rescue operation lasting 43 hours in total.

Detective Inspector Anthony Brazzill from the Marine Area Command said Mr Ey was "very lucky to be alive".

"Sea and weather conditions were challenging and the man had been drifting further and further out to sea.

"It’s been a long and tiring journey and I am sure he is looking forward to having a proper meal, a hot shower and seeing his friends and family.

"Once again this is a good example of the use of emergency locator beacons, and I would encourage all recreational sailors to invest in one.

"As we have seen today, they might just save your life."

Mr Ey had left Sydney for Eden on the south coast two weeks ago. He told rescuers he was planning to sail from Broken Bay to New Zealand.

Asked if he was going to be heading back to sea any time soon, he was blunt: "No I'm not," he said. "It's too scary."