His relatives are “very worried”: the Girondin Jean-Jacques Savin, 75, who had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a barrel in 2019 before leaving on January 1 for a rowing crossing, no longer gave any sign of life from Thursday night to Friday.
“We are very worried,” told AFP members of his team of volunteers who follow the adventure of the septuagenarian from France and lost his track north of Madeira.
“Unfortunately, since 12:34 a.m. yesterday morning (Friday), we have no longer had any contact or any demonstration from him”, they added, specifying that he had then triggered “his two distress beacons indicating that we were + in large difficulty+”.
Since then, nothing. In a text published Saturday on Facebook, on the page “Jean-Jacques Savin: rowing across the Atlantic”, Manon, her daughter, repeats that “we are of course very worried. Everything was immediately implemented in coordination with the French, Portuguese and American rescue services at sea”,
The team is in particular in contact with the CROSS Gris-Nez (Pas-de-Calais), in charge of rescue at sea for French sailors.
During the last contacts, Jean-Jacques Savin was offshore, north of Madeira and was on his way to the small island of Ponta Delgada, in the Azores archipelago, to repair.
– “I’m not in danger!” –
Because shortly after leaving Sagres (southern Portugal) on January 1, the adventurer was quickly diverted due to bad winds. His initial route had thus been extended by 900 km and then he had to encounter serious energy and communication problems.
On Wednesday, on his Facebook page, Jean-Jacques Savin mentioned the “strong swell and the force of the wind”, adding that he was obliged to “use (his) manual desalinator”. “It costs me physical energy. Don’t worry, I’m not in danger!”, He wrote.
Jean-Jacques Savin, a resident of Arès in the Arcachon basin, intended to row across the Atlantic in a canoe and become “the dean of the Atlantic”, “a way of taunting old age”.
He celebrated his 75th birthday on January 14 aboard the “Audacieux”, his canoe eight meters long, 1.70 m wide, equipped with two cabins and a rowing station in the middle.
On board, 300 kg of equipment, including freeze-dried food, a heating point, a spear gun for fishing, an electric desalinator and a manual, his mandolin, Champagne, Sauternes and foie gras to celebrate his birthday.
“I’m going on vacation to the open sea, I’m taking three months of vacation,” he laughed shortly before his departure.
A great sportsman and “adventurer at heart”, this former military parachutist, thin and muscular, had spent more than four months in 2019 in a barrel-shaped boat three meters long and 2.10 m in diameter. He had thus crossed the Atlantic alone, driven by the winds and currents.
This former private pilot and curator of a national park in Africa had thus joined the West Indies, which he hoped to reach again by rowing.
He had signed a book “127 days adrift, the Atlantic in a barrel” on his adventure which had also been followed by 23,000 people on Facebook.
For this new expedition, he was admired day by day by the children of the Ela association (European Association against leukodystrophies).
“I’m going to row eight hours a day, and when it blows hard, I lock myself up,” he said, rejoicing at the fact of benefiting from new protection: the assignment of a code allowing him to be seen. by the radars of cargo ships. A security which he had not been able to benefit from during his previous adventure two years ago.