NASSAU -- The homemade wooden sailboat was supposed to deliver Orlando Hernandez to freedom's shore, but it began to take on water only minutes into the voyage.

Afraid the feeble 20-footer would sink soon after leaving Cuba, Hernandez grabbed an oar with the same hands that once launched 90-mph pitches for the Cuban national baseball team. Hernandez, the half-brother of Marlins pitcher Livan Hernandez, showed off the calluses on his hands Wednesday as he talked of the odyssey he shared with five other men and two women.

By nightfall Wednesday, the United States granted asylum to Hernandez, his girlfriend, Noris Bosch, and Alberto Hernandez, a former catcher on the Cuban national team who shares the same last name but is no relation.

But hours before the U.S. announcement, Orlando Hernandez sat in a crowded room on the fourth floor of the Bahamas Department of Immigration building, talking about playing on the same team with his half-brother, of dining at McDonald's, but mostly of wanting to be free.

``Let me be explicit in my words so there's no misunderstanding,'' Hernandez said slowly and deliberately in Spanish. ``We came here seeking human rights. God sent us into this world to have liberty and be somebody. He wants us to be treated like persons. That's what we desire.''

Hernandez wore a teal Marlins cap and matching Charlotte Hornets warm-up suit and was flanked by the doomed little vessel's seven other passengers.

He talked of becoming a scapegoat in Cuba for the transgressions of other athletes who defected before him. He claimed Cuban authorities harassed him in his house and on the street, telling him he was a nobody, promising he would never play baseball again.

But now -- after surviving 10 hours at sea and three nights on a remote island with only four cans of Spam and a jug of water to sustain the eight people -- Hernandez wiped tears from his eyes and had a message for the Cuban government.

``The people who mean nothing to the Cuban government when we're there should mean nothing to them now that we're gone,'' Hernandez said. ``They've told us we are nobodies. We're going to demonstrate to them that we are somebody.''

The best known

Orlando Hernandez and Alberto Hernandez are the best known from the crew. Orlando, 28, was perhaps Cuba's most dominant pitcher before he was suspended from the team following the defection of several prominent players.

Alberto, 26, was the starting catcher on the national team that won gold in the July 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Following the Games, he also was banned from Cuban baseball because he says Cuba feared he would defect.

But the bans were only a beginning.

``Our families were offended on the street,'' Orlando Hernandez said. ``Police would call and harass us, telling us we'd never play again. They told us we were paying for the desertion of other athletes and they humiliated us for becoming nobodies.

``That's why we felt obligated to leave.''

Friend targeted

Hernandez said the poor treatment he endured extended to those around him. Osmany Lorenzo, 28, has been Hernandez's best friend for eight years. Lorenzo allowed Hernandez to use his car, the two shared food rations, and the TV interviews Hernandez did during the World Series were taped in Lorenzo's house.

And so Lorenzo was also a target for the government's vengeance. ``The last five months have been hell for us,'' Lorenzo said. ``They took away my job. They checked on me. It would have been easier if I wasn't Orlando's friend.

``But I wouldn't renounce that friendship. The pain in my heart would have been greater than any discomfort a government can make you feel.''

On Dec. 15, the authorities barged into Lorenzo's house and took him away for 12 hours of questioning. ``I was told if they merely found out that we were thinking of getting on anything that floats, they would put us under arrest,'' Lorenzo said.

Lorenzo, Orlando Hernandez and Alberto Hernandez soon hatched a plan to escape the island. They contacted Juan Carlos Romero who had been secretly building a boat for five months, using wood he stole from various sources.

Crew completed

Romero, 30, and his wife, Geidi Gonzalez, 24, agreed to captain the boat to freedom, navigating with a compass he made with magnets. Lenin Rivero Hernandez, a former sailor, would be first mate. Orlando Hernandez would include Bosch, 20, and his cousin, Joel Pedroso, 21, on the boat's crew.

``We needed young people with strong hands,'' said Romero, adding the four wooden oars he fashioned for the sailboat each weighed about 10 pounds.

Alberto Hernandez, a fire hydrant of a man at 5 feet 10 inches and 210 pounds, would be invaluable on the oars, Romero said.

It's a wonder he was on the voyage at all.

Alberto Hernandez came close to defecting on two previous occasions. South Florida sports agent Joe Cubas persuaded him to defect when he snatched pitcher Osvaldo Fernandez from the Cuban national team while it was in Millington, Tenn., in 1995.

Fernandez stuck with the defection plan and now plays for the San Francisco Giants. Alberto Hernandez had doubts, so he returned to his hotel room and relative anonymity. Hernandez got a second chance in July 1996.

After the gold-medal game, Hernandez found himself in a car Cubas had pointed toward Miami and freedom. But the prospect of leaving his then-pregnant wife caused Hernandez to again return to his team.

``This is the last time I'll see you,'' Hernandez told Cubas. Then the men hugged and parted.

A long embrace

When they saw each other again Wednesday inside the pink immigration building that sits on Hawkins Hill, the two held each other in a long embrace, a well of tears forming in the player's eyes.

``You don't know how I've suffered,'' Hernandez whispered to Cubas.

``You're safe now,'' Cubas said, still holding his friend. ``The worst is over, I guarantee it.''

Alberto Hernandez left a wife and two daughters in Cuba. Orlando Hernandez also left two daughters by his ex-wife. He has lived with Bosch for two years.

``This time, the situation was so harsh I had to go,'' Alberto Hernandez said. ``A man can only take so much before he has to act. I reached the point where I had to act.''

At approximately 7:25 a.m. Dec. 26, the eight boaters launched their craft from Holguin province and sailed north. Water began seeping into the nameless vessel within minutes, and the startled crew began to bail and row simultaneously.

They landed on deserted Anguila Cay about 5:30 p.m. that same day and survived until Monday morning on Spam, seaweed and shellfish. ``If I tell you I wasn't afraid I'd be lying,'' Osmany Lorenzo said. ``I could tell you what happened, but you'll never understand unless you've experienced it.''

Taken to Freeport

A U.S. Coast Guard vessel rescued the eight and took them to Freeport. Another vessel dropped them off in Nassau, but not before Romero was given a bright orange Coast Guard jacket that he proudly wore throughout the day Wednesday.

The eight were taken to the detention center on Carmichael Road, where they spent the night Tuesday and again Wednesday. Sixty-seven Cuban rafters live in the spartan barracks behind double-chain-link fences and barbed wire.

The Faith Tabernacle Church of God is across the street, and ice cream trucks routinely drive down Carmichael Road. But make no mistake, this is a prison in every sense, complete with armed guards.

``The Bahamian authorities have treated us very well even though we're still not free,'' Orlando Hernandez said. ``The only thing more I could ask for is a meal from McDonald's.''

Less than an hour later, the Bahamians delivered eight Big Macs, large fries and Cokes.