![]() ![]() Before dawn, a big breaking sea parted the life raft from the Napoleon Solo, and Callahan drifted away. He stood off in the raft but managed to get back aboard several times to dive below and retrieve a piece of cushion, a sleeping bag, and an emergency kit containing, among other things, some food, navigation charts, a short spear gun, flares, flashlight, solar stills for producing drinking water, and a copy of Sea Survival, a survival manual written by Dougal Robertson, a fellow ocean survivor. Unable to stay aboard Napoleon Solo as it filled with water and was overwhelmed by breaking seas, Callahan escaped into a six-person Avon inflatable life raft, measuring about six feet across. In his book, Callahan writes that he suspects the damage occurred from a collision with a whale. In a growing gale, seven days out, his vessel was badly holed by an unknown object during a night storm, and became swamped, although it did not sink outright due to the watertight compartments Callahan had designed into the boat. He departed El Hierro in the Canary Islands on January 29, 1982, still headed for Antigua. Callahan made repairs and continued voyaging down the coast of Spain and Portugal, out to Madeira and the Canaries. Bad weather had sunk several boats in the fleet and damaged many others including the Napoleon Solo. ![]() ![]() He had left Cornwall that fall, bound for Antigua as part of the Mini Transat 6.50 single-handed sailing race from Penzance, England, but dropped out of the race in La Coruña, Spain. Sailing Ĭallahan departed Newport, Rhode Island, United States, in 1981 on the Napoleon Solo, a 6.5-meter (21.3-foot) sloop he designed and built himself, single-handedly sailed the boat to Bermuda, and continued the voyage to England with friend Chris Latchem. Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost At Sea is a 1986 memoir by Steven Callahan about his survival alone in a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean, which lasted 76 days. ![]()
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