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When director Ang Lee started making a film of the 2001 novel Life of Pi, pundits were convinced the shipwreck tale would sink without trace.

Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning tale of Indian boy Pi Patel stranded on a lifeboat for 227 days with a Bengal tiger was considered “unfilmable”.

But millions of film fans around the world are flocking to watch the cutting-edge movie that merges fantasy with reality in stunning 3D. And Life of Pi, which is in cinemas now, was yesterday nominated for 11 Oscars, including Best Film and Best Director.

Any concerns about it being too far-fetched were scuppered, thanks to the involvement of Steve Callahan – the real Pi, who has his own incredible true-life survival story.

Yachtsman Steve was 30 and sailing the Atlantic alone when his 21ft sloop was hit by a whale and sank in a storm a week after leaving the Canary Islands.

He scrambled on to his inflatable life-raft with a few meagre supplies and a basic emergency kit but was 800 miles from land in one of the emptiest parts of the ocean – and convinced he was doomed.

But against all the odds, Steve survived for 76 days on the 6ft wide dinghy and drifted 1,800 miles before being rescued by fishermen in the Caribbean.

He faced sharks, storms, raft punctures and equipment failure on top of his hunger and thirst.

He lost a third of his weight and his body was covered in salt water sores.

(Image: YouTube)

He was at mental breaking-point when, after eventually reaching a shipping lane, he signalled nine different ships which all failed to spot him.

Steve’s rescue made headlines around the world in 1982 and he later wrote a best-selling book, Adrift, which is mentioned by Martel in Life of Pi.

To help them understand Pi’s journey, in 2009 Lee and film scriptwriter David McGee tracked Steve down to his home in Maine, USA, and listened in awe to his experiences.

Steve, now 60, says: “Ang and Dave came out to Maine and I took them out sailing and talked about the ordeal.

“I remember telling them about one night when I was adrift and a whale and her calf suddenly arose from the deep 100ft away and breached, belly to belly.”

Steve, who studied philosophy at university, called it “one of many spiritual highs” and says his time adrift gave him “a view of heaven from a seat in hell”.

In 2010 Lee asked him to join the film crew as marine and survival consultant.

At the time Steve was trying to conquer another challenge – having treatment for leukaemia and recovering from surgery on his kidneys.

(Image: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

But he threw himself into the film with passion and Lee credits him with making the sea, and Pi’s journey, authentic and believable.

Steve says: “I mapped out what the ocean and sky would look like and matched it with the storyline. I spent time with Suraj Sharma, who plays Pi, discussing the psychological issues.

“I showed him how to spear fish and drive away sharks.

"I explained how, after almost three months on the raft, my reflexes were so quick I once plucked a passing minnow straight from the water and popped it in my mouth as a snack.

"They loved the image, so Ang had Suraj incorporate it into his character.

“They called me ‘the Real Pi’ but Pi was Spiderman-at-sea compared to me.”

Inevitably, the project brought back disturbing memories of his own perilous journey.

In 1982 Steve’s six-year marriage had collapsed and he decided to fulfil a lifelong dream, to cross the ocean in a small, home-made boat called Napoleon Solo.

But a week after leaving the Canaries a storm blew up.

He recalls: “I was jolted awake by a terrible crash. BOOM! Something hit the boat and a whole bunch of water came rushing in.

“I knew immediately that she was doomed and I’d better get out of there or go down with it.

"I got into the life raft and then it broke away from the boat in the middle of the Atlantic.

Steve recalls that first night was devastating. He was cold and scared and thought he would die of hypothermia.

“And I knew no one would be looking for me as I’d told them I’d be out of touch for five or six weeks. My chances of survival were almost hopeless.

“But I spent the next two-and-a-half months living like an aquatic caveman.”

His raft had a canopy that offered protection from the sun and he had basic survival equipment, like solar stills – a device produced during the Second World War for pilots to distil freshwater from saltwater.

When he eventually got them to work they produced just a few mouthfuls a day. By sheer chance Steve also had a spear he had bought in the Canaries and rolled up in his raft.

After a few days barnacles and weeds started to grow on the bottom of the raft, which attracted small fish, then bigger fish – which he speared and ate.

“I had an island ecology following me along,” Steve says. “I named the raft Rubber Ducky, my little island.

“I began getting dorado. They’re big fish, so I would eat the organs before they went bad then cut the flesh into inch squares which I strung up to dry in the sun.

“I had to work – getting up in the morning, navigating, exercising, keeping a log, fishing, doing repairs... being proactive.

“I’d been pinning my hopes on drifting into a shipping lane and after two weeks I did. I was elated. I saw a ship on the horizon and could smell the diesel in the air. But it went right past me.”

Despite using his emergency flares it happened again and again.

“Having that whole rescue fantasy being blown to hell was the greatest down,” he says. “It was the first time I cried.”

But things got worse. One day, while catching a fish, his spear punctured the raft.

"His repairs kept failing and he spent 10 days exhausting himself patching it up.

“I was absolutely beat,” he says. “I just gave up. I lay down and totally broke down.

"I said, ‘You are going to die all alone in the centre of the ocean and you have never done anything successful in your life.’

“Then I got scared. It was very real and I had to snap out of it or I would be dead.”

But then on his 76th day at sea Steve spotted land in the distance – the Caribbean island of Marie Galante – and heard the engines of an approaching fishing boat.

It pulled alongside and three startled occupants asked Steve what he was doing.

He says: “It was like my senses had been plugged into an electric current – every colour was vibrant, every smell intense. Everything was beautiful.”

But, remarkably, Steve told his saviours to carry on fishing before taking him ashore – and thanks to the fish following Rubber Ducky they got a big haul.

He adds: “When I got ashore I couldn’t stand up because of extreme sea legs, so I just collapsed on the beach.

“As I rode in the raft I witnessed powerful and beautiful things as well as incredibly horrible ones.

“And I realised that I really missed people in my life, whether they were a pain in the ass or not. I came back a better person.”