A 71-year-old Frenchman set sail across the Atlantic on Wednesday in a barrel-shaped orange capsule, hoping to reach the Caribbean within three months thanks to ocean currents alone.
“The weather is great – I’ve got a swell of one meter and I’m moving at two or three kilometers an hour,” Jean-Jacques Savin told AFP by telephone after setting off from El Hierro in Spain’s Canary Islands.
“For the time being my capsule is behaving very, very well and I’ve got favourable winds forecast until Sunday.”
Savin had worked on his vessel for months in the small shipyard of Ares on France’s southwest coast.
Measuring three meters (10 feet) long and 2.10 meters across, it is made from resin-coated plywood, heavily reinforced to resist waves and potential attacks by orca whales.
Une traversée où l’homme ne serait pas capitaine de son bateau, mais passager de l’Océan. C’est le défi incroyable de Jean-Jacques Savin, 71 ans, qui s’apprête à traverser l’Atlantique à bord… d’un tonneau ! https://t.co/geAaFruUXC pic.twitter.com/r1lXKX4l81
— Georges Goudet (@GeorgesGoudet) November 28, 2018
Inside the capsule, which weighs 450 kilograms (990 pounds) when empty, is a six-square-meter living space which includes a kitchen, sleeping bunk and storage.
A porthole in the floor allows Savin to look at passing fish.
A former military parachutist who served in Africa, Savin has also worked as a pilot and a national park ranger.
He has stowed away a block of foie gras and a bottle of Sauternes white wine for New Year’s Eve, along with a bottle of red Saint-Emilion for his 72nd birthday on January 14.
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