A French adventurer who is adrift in the ocean inside a barrel is relying on the power of the sea alone to carry him across the Atlantic.
Jean-Jacques Savin, 71, set out from the Canary Islands in his orange barrel, which is three-metres long, on Boxing Day. The homemade capsule has no sails or engine.
Savin anticipates that trade winds and currents will carry him to the Caribbean by the end of March.
“The weather is great — I’ve got a swell of one metre and I’m moving at two or three kilometres an hour,” he told AFP by phone after his departure.
“For the time being, my capsule is behaving very, very well and I’ve got favourable winds forecast until Sunday.”
In his most recent update on Facebook Thursday morning, he posted a selfie and said that everything is fine.
Savin wants to prove a theory put forward by French doctor and adventurer Alain Bombard in 1952, stating a journey across the Atlantic without any technical help is possible.
The barrel, which took him months to build, is made of wood and resin. The structure includes a kitchen, bunk and storage within six square metres, AFP reports.
— With files from Reuters
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