Australia ? A commercial fisherman who survived 30 hours in the water after his trawler sank recounted his harrowing ordeal Thursday, telling how he clung desperately to a fiberglass cooler lid while trying vainly to help his exhausted skipper stay afloat.

John Jarrett said the boat’s captain, Charlie Picton, held on for hours but eventually drifted away, according to a friend of the crew, Mark McMurtrie.

Authorities called off an air search for Picton, 40, late Thursday. “The evidence suggests that the victim has drowned,” a police statement said.

A search helicopter found Jarrett, 41, Thursday afternoon about 9 miles off the coast at Ballina, clinging to the cooler lid that also was used on the trawler as a shrimp-sorting table, Ten Network television reported. Police said he spent 30 hours in the 75-degree water.