I did a search and did not see this being talked about here so I thought I would bring it up.
It seems that in 1998, a one Benoit Lecomte swam across the Atlantic Ocean in 72 days. The story can be found here. I for one find this to be a bit hard to swallow. According to him this is an average of 51 nautical miles every day for 72 days. And for his time of swimming 8 hours a day a speed of just over 6 nautical miles per hour. Granted he did use wetsuits and fins, but that's still blazing fast.
I remember hearing about this a couple of years ago and since then nothing new has come up. There don't seem to be any pictures, and as amazing as it seems only a few websites. Does anyone know if he actually did this or not? Or if he was BSing a lot of people. One would think that for all the press other people get for doing things, this would be one of them. No stories come up on CNN. Is anyone else's BS meter showing for this feat?
Former Member
my guess is that he used strategic course plotting and ocean currents to help him along. I think the gulf stream for instance has a speed between 2 & 5 miles per hour. That can help quite a bit.
Former Member
He actually DID do it, however, that comes with a caveat. Namely, I remember that he didn't start in the same place as he stopped the day before. So, if his raft drifted 30 miles overnight, that's where he got in. He had a sponsor (Nestle, if memory serves) and was supposed to be conducting "research" for some sort of energy drink that they were testing.
Your basic crazy mofo stunt.
-LBJ
Former Member
This has always been my great desire. I would probably freez to death. Where you have to swim is relatively norht to escape any weather problem like hurricanes, however, the ocean is so cold! I think it woudl be so much fun to swim for hours and hours. The most I've ever swam is 4 hours around Cape Cod for fun. A friend and I got inthe water & just swam for four hours. I thought I woudl freez to death. I was so cold the entire time. When we got back to P-town, soem guys having drinks cheered us on. It was so bizarre!
