An incredible story of survival and the will to live has emerged from Australia after a man swam for 12 hours straight to safety, while another clung to a foam cooler for more than a day until help arrived.

The story began just before dawn Wednesday when the trawler three men on a fishing expedition were sailing in suddenly hit a reef and began to sink about 15 kilometres off the country's mid-northeast coast.

When the ship went down, one of them, 39-year-old Michael Williams, became separated from his  two companions, and had no choice but to try and swim to shore to save his life.

Stroke after stroke, the exhausted man paddled through the water. He somehow kept it up for 12 torturous hours, until finally hitting the beach at a place called Brunswick Heads (top left), dehydrated and *lo**y - but still very much alive.

"He had pretty bad cuts and bruises to his legs and his arms, he was pretty exhausted, pretty badly sunburnt," explains Chris Gort, who aided the fisherman as he came ashore.

Meanwhile, his two companions were still out there. John Jarratt and skipper Charlie Picton managed to grab onto the only item they could find from their lost ship - that cooler known as an 'esky.' For 30 long hours, the 40-year-old Jarratt battled his own exhaustion to try and save himself and his friend.

At one point, helicopters searching for the men whirred overhead, but the tantalizing sound of the rescue party left them distraught when they failed to spot them in the darkness. Jarratt performed heroic feats, saving his own skin as he tried desperately to help Picton.

"Every time the esky got a bit too much water in it he'd have to sort of hold Charlie up in one hand and hold the esky up out of the water with the other and then put it back down so it was full of air again," family spokesman Mark McMurtrie reveals.

Finally, another chopper came by and spotted the desperate sailor, quickly ferrying him to a hospital bed. He'd been in the water for 30 hours. "I wasn't going to die out there mate," the sunburnt and dehydrated Jarratt reveals from his hospital bed.

But this amazing story still doesn't have a conclusion or a happy ending. At some point during his day-long plus ordeal, Jarratt became separated from Picton and has no idea what happened to the captain of the vessel.

The search for the final crew member of the ill-fated trip continues, with time running out. Officials note the water temperature is about 24C, and hope if they find the missing man soon, there's a good chance he may have survived, as well.

"Judging that the second fisherman survived through the night ... we can only hope that the same has occurred with the third," outlines Roger Fry of Lifesaver Rescue Helicopter. Fishing boats, police craft and others have joined the search, but so far they haven't found him.

As for the survivors, Jarratt is grateful to still be alive but the ordeal has profoundly changed him. He's already told friends he will "never" go back in the ocean again.