Duly noted. Still, I gotta say I’m happy I wasn’t in his shoes. I think anyone who made it through that without swimming out to sea deserves some respect.
Sarchasm: the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
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A film about the epic voyage across the Atlantic in 1904 is in production and the “Brudeegget” has been launched again to film the departure from Ålesund:
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Yrvind, an 81 year old Swede, is currently 5-600 miles WSW of Dingle, Ireland, out of Alesund, headed for an unknown destination in a very small boat he built himself. www.yrvind.com/
He has quite a manifesto on his site, and is a veteran of many small boat passages. He appears to be, as we sometimes say, a character. The current boat is a new built version of his previous one, which got him from the west coast of Sweden to the Canaries.
I read Kon Tiki several times. The picture questioned is the crew out for a photo as it is nothing like what they wore underway. People back in those not too far gone days wore ties as a matter of course. I think the early Spanish and Portuguese explorers made some phenomenal voyages also.
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Heyerdahl made another voyage, less well known, from Morocco to Barbados, arriving Barbados in July 1970 after 57 days at sea. Coincidentally I happened to be in Barbados as a teen on a family vacation when he arrived and remember his arrival well. The boat was Ra II, built by some Bolivians to a native Bolivian/Peruvian design using reeds.
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He made a movie about that voyage. Saw it as a kid back in the early 70s. . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra_(1972_film)
Why do you belittle aam by his trade- a “lowly” Steward? Not so “lowly”, if he survived the ordeal, while the officers and “true” seamen did not.
My opinion, re: Poon Lim’s feat of survival;
Specifying someone as “lowly” is not belittling them. The definition of “lowly” is “low in status or importance; humble.” As you know on a ship there is hierarchy of importance. A steward is not at the top of that hierarchy. Hence, a junior member of the steward’s department is, in relative terms, lowly.
I used the term “lowly” in juxtaposition, to highlight the oddity that a lowly steward without training lasted longer on a raft/lifeboat than all the professional mariners and experienced yachtsman in recorded history.
The juxtaposition reminds me of Matthew 20:16:
So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
It seems that this thread assumes that all small boats on big oceans are on a epic or risky/foolish journey. This is far from the truth. My experiences over a 20 year timeframe tell a different tale. The majority
were young to middle aged couples with or without children. This was supplemented by a scattering of single handers and retirees. Some were on budget but most had accumulated adequate funds. As a group they thay were well prepared for the voyage undertaken.
That said: There was one guy who dragged around every anchorage, made landfall at a different island than he was expecting. Then managed to hit a reef & sink the boat. Fortunately they spent the next 50+ days in a raft towing a loaded hard dingy & surfboard. Washed up on a small islet in Fiji. Rescued by missionaries of a different faith. A few from as far back 1980s are still happily meandering their way around the tropical Oceans & Islands of the world. In no hurry to close the circle.
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