“Since 0:34 yesterday morning [vendredi], we no longer have any contact or any demonstration on his part, ”announced the team of Jean-Jacques Savin to AFP this Saturday. the Girondin The 75-year-old, who had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a barrel in 2019 before leaving on January 1 to row across it, triggered his distress beacons on Friday.
“Our concern is great as you can imagine,” adds the team, which specifies that the adventurer triggered “his two distress beacons indicating that we are” in great difficulty “”.
Manon, his daughter, says that “everything was immediately implemented in coordination with the French, Portuguese and American sea rescue services”. The team is in particular in contact with the CROSS Gris-Nez (Pas-de-Calais), in charge of sea rescue for French sailors.
It was off Madeira
According to the communication manager of the volunteer team, Jean-Jacques Savin was at the time of the last contacts, offshore, north of Madeira and was on his way to the small island of Ponta Delgada, in the Azores archipelago, to fix.
After being rerouted due to bad winds and having considerably lengthened his planned route, the septuagenarian encountered serious problems with breakdowns of electric batteries and solar collectors.
Jean-Jacques Savin, a resident of Arès in the Arcachon basin, left Sagres (southern Portugal) on January 1 to try to cross the Atlantic by rowing canot and become “the dean of the Atlantic”, “a way of taunting old age”.
He had celebrated his 75th birthday on January 14 aboard his “Audacieux” canoe, eight meters long, 1.70 m wide, equipped with two cabins, forward and aft, and a rowing, in the middle.
In 2019, this former soldier had spent more than four months in a barrel-shaped boat three meters long and 2.10 m in diameter to cross the Atlantic alone, tossed regarding by the winds and currents.
