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A Russian man survived at sea for 67 days without food. And that's not the limit: sometimes people drift at sea for more than a year. How did they do it?
A Russian man survived 67 days at sea without food. And that's not the limit. Sometimes people drift at sea for more than a year. How was that possible?
The case of a Russian fisherman who drifted in the Sea of Okhotsk for more than two months has much in common with other stories of survival on the high seas. It turns out that training helps you to survive longer. Many travelers have lived in such conditions for up to six months, the record belongs to fisherman Jose Salvador Alvarenga. He wandered the seas for 14 months without water or supplies.
A Salvadoran fisherman who lived on the high seas for more than a year has been charged with cannibalism.
In late 2012, fisherman Jose Salvador Alvarenga and his colleague Ezequiel Cordoba set out on a fiberglass motorboat. They planned to catch some fish and return in two days at most.
Instead, they encountered a storm that lasted for five days. The engines failed, the electronics failed, and the batteries soon died. Alvarenga didn't have an oar, so he had nothing to row with. I just hope they are rescued soon.
But they were not saved. Alvarenga and Cordoba had to survive at sea for months. He later said that he ate fish and birds that he caught with his bare hands, drank rainwater and the blood of turtles.
Alvarenga kept the body in his boat for six days, but he couldn't take it anymore and threw it overboard. To avoid going crazy, as he later claimed.
But that was only the beginning of his misfortunes. He drifted for another 10 months. Only in early 2014 did the current ones move towards Ebon Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands. In 2015, the book "438 Days" was published, which describes his journey.
Alvarenga is not the first person to board an out-of-control vessel on the high seas. But no one has ever survived such a long voyage without food or water. And because his account of what happened on the ship is the only one known, skeptics suspect he is not telling the whole story.
Cordova's relatives also do not trust Alvarenga. They believe that the fisherman survived only by eating his partners and cannibalism. After the book was published, they even filed a lawsuit, demanding $1 million in damages. Alvarenga denied the accusations and took a polygraph test to prove his claims.
An unlucky traveler spent six months wandering on an out-of-control boat with a cat and noodles.
Pole Zbigniew Reket drifted across the Indian Ocean for six months in an unmaneuverable boat, but had a significant advantage over Alvarenga. He took his cat, a month's supply of instant noodles and a DVD collection of Indian films with him on the trip.
In 2014, Reket decided to fulfill his long-time dream and buy his own boat. Since he had no money, he went to India, where the world's largest shipyard is located. There, Paul got his hands on an 11-meter boat that was once used on cruise ships.
The destination of the first voyage was Jakarta. When we were almost there, a storm suddenly broke out. The ship lost its mast and was carried away by a strong current. In a matter of weeks, she crossed the entire Indian Ocean and reached the east coast of Africa.
Eventually, Requet settled in the Comoros Islands, where he spent more than two years repairing boats. When everything was ready, he decided to sail to America.
Jang Dae-in ate fish caught in the sea and drank the dew that had collected on the boat's hull at night. Bollywood DVDs helped pass the time. And when I was bored, I lay on the mattress with my cat and thought about Wojciech Jaruzelski, who ruled socialist Poland in the 1980s. Reket hated him.
The traveler was rescued on December 25, 2017. He had been adrift for almost half a year, but his ship had not sailed very far. The requet was found near Reunion Island, which is on the coast of Africa, like the Comoros Islands, but opposite Madagascar.
A British couple survived on a raft for 117 days, eating fish, birds and turtles.
In June 1972, Maurice and Marilyn Bailey set sail on a small yacht called Oraline. They wanted to start a new life by moving from England to New Zealand. It took nine months to cross the Atlantic. Oraline sailed to the Pacific Ocean via the Panama Canal.
Disaster struck seven days later. The yacht collided with a sperm whale that had been shot by a whaler. Water rushed through a huge hole, and Oralin sank to the bottom. The couple were left with only a small raft, an inflatable boat, and enough canned food to last for weeks.
After a month, Maurice began to lose hope of being rescued. Their raft had reached an area of the Pacific Ocean where only a few ships could sail, so there was no one to take them. The only consolation was that the sea was full of creatures that had never encountered a human and felt no fear.
When supplies began to run low, Marilyn made a rig out of hooks made from pins and began catching fish. They also caught birds that were sitting on rafts and boats. Their catch was eaten raw and usually drained of blood.
The raft was rescued by a Korean fishing boat, the Wolmi 306, returning to Busan after two years in the Atlantic Ocean. Several weeks later, fishermen picked up the exhausted couple and dropped them off in Hawaii. By then, Maurice and Marilyn Bailey had been on the raft for 117 days.
Stories of unfortunate travelers forced to survive on the high seas often begin with storms that destroy masts, rudders, engines, and communications equipment. Exceptions are rare, but the case of the Filipino sailors in 2018 is one of them.
Their boat sank after colliding with a two-metre marlin. This fish can reach speeds of up to 110 kilometres per hour and subdue prey with its long, sharp, spear-like snout. But it was intercepted by a fishing catamaran. The marlin drilled two large holes in the bottom, and the water immediately poured out.
The 12-metre-long ship quickly filled with water and sank to the bottom. The fishermen travelled on makeshift rafts made from outriggers, planks and barrels. There was no food and only enough water for two days. “We waved our hands, but not a single merchant ship came to our aid,” said one of the fishermen. “But we did not lose hope.”
On the fifth day, the raft was spotted by the USS Wally Schirra, a freighter in the US Navy. Fishermen waved their arms and flags and shone flashlights at passing ships. “Luckily, we were going slow enough to see them,” says helmsman Keith Sauls.
A similar story happened a year ago on the evening of October 21 on the southern coast of Western Australia. Five fishermen caught a shark and dragged it into an inflatable boat. At that moment, the shark did the most logical and predictable thing. They made a hole in the boat and it began to deflate before our eyes.
The fishermen were unable to start the boat due to damage to the fuel hose and engine, so they dropped the anchor and waited for rescuers to arrive. Then someone on land noticed that the fishermen had not returned and reported it to the police. They were rescued a few hours later. What happened to the resourceful shark is not reported.