The Frenchman Jean-Jacques Savin, 75, who was trying to row across the Atlantic, is still missing off the Azores, the Portuguese navy announced on Sunday, while his entourage had indicated the day before that his body had been ” found lifeless” inside his boat.
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“The search ended late yesterday (Saturday) without it being possible to find the victim,” the Portuguese navy said in a statement.
Asked by AFP, a spokeswoman for the navy explained that during the rescue operation the rescuers had “strong reasons to believe that a body might be inside” the cabin. of the canoe L’Audacieux.
“There have been confusions which we are currently seeking to clear up. We don’t know any more. We are awaiting information from the Portuguese authorities,” the adventurer’s team told AFP in France.
According to the Portuguese Navy press release, the first merchant navy vessel to have reached the position from which the alert had departed “reported having seen the boat and the navigator in the early hours of Friday January 21, but when they approached the boat, he indicated that the man was no longer there.
The septuagenarian’s canoe was found upside down, as evidenced by a photo released by the Portuguese navy where we see the hull of the boat floating on the surface, then hoisted aboard one of its corvettes.
“One of the merchant vessels collected a waterproof bag which contained the navigator’s identification documents inside,” she said in her statement.
The navigator, who had made himself known by crossing the Atlantic in a barrel in 2019, pushed by the winds and the currents, had aroused the concern of his relatives since Friday morning.
“Unfortunately, since 12:34 a.m. yesterday morning (Friday), we have no longer had any contact or any demonstration on his part,” members of his team told AFP on Saturday morning. According to them, he had triggered his two distress beacons, “indicating that he was in great difficulty”.
During the last contacts, Jean-Jacques Savin was north of Madeira, offshore, and was on his way to the island of Ponta Delgada, in the Azores archipelago, to repair.
Because shortly following leaving Sagres (southern Portugal) on January 1, this great sportsman, “adventurer at heart”, was quickly diverted due to bad winds. His initial route had thus been extended by 900 km and then he had to encounter serious energy and communication problems.