From the Liveblog of
Sunday, January 23, 2022
75-year-old French adventurer dies while attempting solo Atlantic crossing
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleA 75-year-old French adventurer has died on a solo attempt to row across the Atlantic Ocean.
The death of Jean-Jacques Savin is announced by his friends on a Facebook page that had been chronicling his voyage.
They say maritime rescue services located his body yesterday inside the cabin of his boat, named “Audacious,” which was found overturned off the Azores Islands, a mid-Atlantic Portuguese archipelago.
Traversée de l'Atlantique : Jean-Jacques Savin retrouvé mort dans son canot https://t.co/hQSMdYjJIK pic.twitter.com/lp2zrQW4nq
— FRANCE 24 – Vidéos (@F24videos) January 23, 2022
The former soldier set off on January 1 from the southern tip of Portugal on the westward voyage he had anticipated would take about three months.
In 2019, Savin previously floated alone across the Atlantic in a large barrel-shaped capsule. Propelled only by winds and currents, that crossing from Spain’s Canary Islands to the Caribbean took 127 days.
Savin had activated two distress beacons on Thursday night.
“Unfortunately, the ocean this time was stronger this time than our friend, he who so loved navigating and the sea,” the Facebook post announcing his death says.
The Times of Israel Community.