Swirly World lost a skeg or part of one and started taking on water, he started heading north from wherever he was and managed to locate a ship. He was rescued and Swirly World sank.
As Booboo said, it may have been rudder damage, but he was taking on water and only had manual bilge pumps, plus manual water maker pumps... life would have got quite tiring quite quickly.
That's my understanding