Steven Callahan (born 6 February 1952) is an American author, naval architect, inventor, and sailor. In 1981, he survived for 76 days adrift on the Atlantic Ocean in a liferaft. Callahan recounted his ordeal in the best-selling book Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea (1986), which was on The New York Times best-seller list for more than 36 weeks.
He holds three U.S. patents: a drogue-like boat stability and directional-control device (Patent No. 6684808);[1] a folding rigid-inflatable boat (FRIB) (Patent No. 6367404);[2] and a folding rigid-bottom boat (FRB) (Patent No. 6739278).[3] The initial model FRIB, called "The Clam", was developed on the basis of his survival experience. The Clam is a multifunction self-rescue dinghy, designed for use as a proactive lifeboat (as well as a yacht tender) that allows the sailor to sail to safety.[4]
Callahan asserts that "It certainly would be nice to have a completely different kind of raft now, what the French call a "Dynamic" raft, meaning the thing sails. The last time I lost my boat, had I been able to beam reach, I could have shortened my drift from 1,800 miles to 450; had I been able to sail even dead downwind but increase speed to a moderate 2.5 knots, I would have been afloat 25 days rather than 76; had I been able to do both I would have sailed to safety in a mere 6 or 7 days."[5]
Callahan departed from Newport, Rhode Island, United States, in 1981 on the Napoleon Solo, a 6.5-metre (21ft)sloop he designed and built himself, single-handedly sailed the boat to Bermuda, and continued the voyage to England with friend Chris Latchem. He had left Cornwall that fall, bound for Antigua as part of the Mini Transat 6.50single-handed sailing race from Penzance, England, but dropped out of the race in La Coruña, Spain. Bad weather had sunk several boats in the fleet and damaged many others, including Napoleon Solo. Callahan made repairs and continued voyaging down the coast of Spain and Portugal, out to Madeira and the Canaries. He departed from El Hierro in the Canary Islands on January 29, 1982, still headed for Antigua. 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 watertight compartments Callahan had designed into the boat. In his book, Callahan writes that he suspects the damage occurred from a collision with a whale.
Unable to stay aboard Napoleon Solo as it filled with water and was overwhelmed by breaking seas, Callahan escaped into a six-man Avon inflatable life raft, measuring about six feet (1.8m) across. 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, torch, 3 solar stills for producing drinking water and a copy of Sea Survival, a survival manual written by Dougal Robertson, a fellow ocean survivor. Before dawn, a big breaking sea parted the life raft from Napoleon Solo and Callahan drifted away.[6]
The raft drifted westward with the South Equatorial Current and the trade winds. After exhausting the meager food supplies he had salvaged from the sinking sloop, Callahan survived by catching food. He mainly ate mahi-mahi, as well as triggerfish, which he speared, along with flying fish, barnacles, and birds that he captured. The sea life was all part of an ecosystem that evolved and followed him for 1,800 nautical miles (3,300km) across the ocean. He collected drinking water from two solar stills (the third of which he had cut open in order to know how to use them) and various jury-rigged devices for collecting rainwater, which together produced on average just over a pint of water per day.
Callahan's use of an EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon) and many flares did not trigger a rescue. EPIRBs were not monitored by satellites at the time, and he was in too empty a part of the ocean to be heard by aircraft. Ships did not spot his flares. While adrift, he spotted nine ships, most in the two sea lanes he crossed, but from the beginning, Callahan knew that he could not rely upon rescue but instead must, for an undetermined time, rely upon himself and maintaining a shipboard routine for survival. He routinely exercised, navigated, prioritized problems, made repairs, fished, improved systems, and built food and water stocks for emergencies.
On the eve of April 20, 1982, he spotted lights on the island of Marie Galante, south east of Guadeloupe. The next day, on Callahan's 76th day afloat in the raft, fishermen picked him up just offshore, drawn to him by birds hovering over the raft, which were attracted by the ecosystem that had developed around it. During the ordeal, he faced sharks, raft punctures, equipment deterioration, physical deterioration, and mental stress. Having lost a third of his weight and being covered with scores of saltwater sores, he was taken to a local hospital and spent six weeks recovering.
During his journey, Callahan experienced a few positive elements aside from suffering, describing the night sky at one point as "A view of heaven from a seat in hell." He still enjoys sailing and the sea, which he calls the world's greatest wilderness. Since his survival drift, he's made dozens of additional offshore passages and ocean crossings, most of them with no more than two other crew.
This incident is featured on the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode "76 Days Adrift".[7] Callahan's story also featured on an episode of British survival expert Ray Mears television series Extreme Survival, and on an episode of the History Channel series Vanishings!.[8]
Life of Pi
In the making of the 2012 movie Life of Pi, director Ang Lee asked Callahan to be a consultant on living aboard a life raft. Ang Lee told Callahan, "I want to make the ocean a real character in this movie." Callahan made lures and other tools seen in the movie.[9]
A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which are designed first and foremost for sailing. A dinghy's main use is for transfers from larger boats, especially when the larger boat cannot dock at a suitably-sized port or marina.
A sea kayak or touring kayak is a kayak used for the sport of paddling on open waters of lakes, bays, and oceans. Sea kayaks are seaworthy small boats with a covered deck and the ability to incorporate a spray deck. They trade off the manoeuvrability of whitewater kayaks for higher cruising speed, cargo capacity, ease of straight-line paddling (tracking), and comfort for long journeys.
An inflatable boat is a lightweight boat constructed with its sides and bow made of flexible tubes containing pressurised gas. For smaller boats, the floor and hull are often flexible, while for boats longer than 3 metres (9.8 ft), the floor typically consists of three to five rigid plywood or aluminium sheets fixed between the tubes, but not joined rigidly together. Often the transom is rigid, providing a location and structure for mounting an outboard motor.
A ghost ship, also known as a phantom ship, is a vessel with no living crew aboard; it may be a fictional ghostly vessel, such as the Flying Dutchman, or a physical derelict found adrift with its crew missing or dead, like the Mary Celeste. The term is sometimes used for ships that have been decommissioned but not yet scrapped, as well as drifting boats that have been found after breaking loose of their ropes and being carried away by the wind or the waves.
Avon Inflatables, Ltd is a manufacturer of inflatable boats, RIBs and marine safety equipment. The company is based in Dafen, near the town of Llanelli in Carmarthenshire, Wales, and supplies the leisure, commercial and military markets.
Alain Bombard was a French biologist, physician and politician famous for sailing in a small boat across the Atlantic Ocean without provision. He theorized that a human being could very well survive the trip across the ocean without provisions and decided to test his theory himself in order to save thousands of lives of people lost at sea.
Poon Lim BEM was a Chinese seafarer. He was born on the island of Hainan, China. In 1942–43 he survived 133 days alone in the South Atlantic.
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a desert island, either to evade captors or the world in general. A person may also be left ashore as punishment (marooned).
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were a British married couple who, in 1973, survived for 118 days on a rubber raft in the Pacific Ocean before being rescued.
Dougal Robertson (1924–1992) was a Scottish author and sailor who with his family survived being adrift at sea after their schooner was holed by a pod of orcas in 1972, one of many documented orca attacks.
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.
Rose-Noëlle was a trimaran that capsized at 6 AM on June 4, 1989, in the southern Pacific Ocean off the coast of New Zealand. Four men survived adrift on the wreckage of the ship for 119 days.
A lifeboat or liferaft is a small, rigid or inflatable boat carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard a ship. Lifeboat drills are required by law on larger commercial ships. Rafts (liferafts) are also used. In the military, a lifeboat may double as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig. The ship's tenders of cruise ships often double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors usually carry inflatable liferafts, though a few prefer small proactive lifeboats that are harder to sink and can be sailed to safety.
The Carley float was a form of invertible liferaft designed by American inventor Horace Carley (1838–1918). Supplied mainly to warships, it saw widespread use in a number of navies during peacetime and both World Wars until superseded by more modern rigid or inflatable designs. Carley was awarded a patent in 1903 after establishing the Carley Life Float Company of Philadelphia.
William Willis was an American sailor and writer who is famous due to his solo rafting expeditions across oceans.
Airborne lifeboats were powered lifeboats that were made to be dropped by fixed-wing aircraft into water to aid in air-sea rescue operations. An airborne lifeboat was to be carried by a heavy bomber specially modified to handle the external load of the lifeboat. The airborne lifeboat was intended to be dropped by parachute to land within reach of the survivors of an accident on the ocean, specifically airmen survivors of an emergency water landing. Airborne lifeboats were used during World War II by the United Kingdom and on Dumbo rescue missions by the United States from 1943 until the mid-1950s.
José Salvador Alvarenga is a Salvadoran fisherman and author who was found on January 30, 2014, aged 36 or 37, on the Marshall Islands after spending 14 months adrift in a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean beginning on November 17, 2012. He survived mainly on a diet of raw fish, turtles, small birds, sharks and rainwater. He swam to shore at Tile Islet, a small island that is part of Ebon Atoll, on January 30. Two locals, Emi Libokmeto and Russel Laikidrik, found him naked, clutching a knife and shouting in Spanish. He was treated in a hospital in Majuro before flying to his family home in El Salvador on February 10.
Adrift is a 2018 survival drama film produced and directed by Baltasar Kormákur and written by David Branson Smith, Aaron Kandell, and Jordan Kandell. The film is based on the 2002 book Red Sky in Mourning by Tami Oldham Ashcraft, a true story set during the events of Hurricane Raymond in 1983. The film stars Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin as a couple who are adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after a hurricane, and must find their way to Hawaii with a damaged boat and no radio.
Tami Lee Oldham Ashcraft (née Oldham) is an American sailor and author who, in 1983, survived 41 days adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Her story inspired the 2018 film Adrift.
Aldi Novel Adilang is an Indonesian fisherman who was stranded alone in the Pacific Ocean for 49 days in 2018.
References
Callahan, Steven (1986), Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea, Houghton Mifflin Company, ISBN978-1-885283-16-0
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