French adventurer dies attempting solo Atlantic crossing
In this file photo taken on May 28, 2021 Jean-Jacques Savin, a former paratrooper, 74, poses on his rowboat at a shipyard in Lege-Cap-Ferret, southwestern France. AFP-Yonhap
A 75-year-old French adventurer has died on a solo attempt to row across the Atlantic Ocean.
The death of Jean-Jacques Savin was announced by his friends on a Facebook page that had been chronicling his voyage.
They said maritime rescue services located his body on Saturday inside the cabin of his boat, named ``Audacious,`` which was found overturned off the Azores Islands, a mid-Atlantic Portuguese archipelago.
The former soldier set off on Jan. 1 from the southern tip of Portugal on the westward voyage he had anticipated would take about three months.
In 2019, Savin had previously floated alone across the Atlantic in a large barrel-shaped capsule. Propelled only by winds and currents, that crossing from Spain's Canary Islands to the Caribbean took 127 days.
Savin had activated two distress beacons on Thursday night.
``Unfortunately, the ocean this time was stronger this time than our friend, he who so loved navigating and the sea,`` the Facebook post announcing his death said. (AP)