“Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Famous traveller requires 3 crew. Must be OAP. Serious adventurers only.”
…So read the ad 84-year-old British adventurer and author Anthony Smith placed in the U.K paper the Telegraph in the hopes of finding a sufficient crew to help him row the Atlantic–a dream he’s waited almost his entire life to complete.
Smith’s ad worked. And his dream will be realized starting in January 2011, with the help of his crew: 57-year old David Hildred (a “yachtsman”), 61-year old Robin Batchelor (a “hot air balloonist”), and Andy Bainbridge, 56 (an “sailor” and friend of Smith’s). Together, they’ll row the Atlantic on a raft that’s being built from 13-yard-long sections of sealed-off plastic gas pipes, a raft which will be replete with two small shelters, a fence lining the circumference of the craft, and a sign on the sail that will read, “Elderly Crossing.”
Smith and his crew will start in the Canary Islands next January, in the hopes of taking advantage of the season’s strong trade winds and completing the 2,800-mile journey, ending in the Bahamas, in just 60 days.
[Via: Gadling]
[Photo Via: The Telegraph]
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