A robust disturbance rejection controller for the hovering motion of underwater vehicles in near the surface of sea is presented. The suggested controller consists of two control parts, the one is disturbance observer for taking into account the effects of sea wave and missile-launching forces, and the other is sliding mode controller for the robust stability of underwater vehicles with model uncertainties and nonlinearities. It is shown that the sliding mode control system with disturbance observer is more effective compared with the sliding mode control system, especially in case that large sea wave force is affected.