Man Tries To Swim Atlantic

A 34-year-old man from London was so inspired by the the Olympic’s swimming event that he decided to cross the Atlantic Ocean and swim his way to New York. He told his friends that he was going to deliver some Olympic spirit across the Atlantic.
His friends thought he was joking and since they know that the man is a good swimmer, they allowed him to jump in the water.

According to reports, the Londoner swan out past the 300-meter buoys, the barrier to the legal swimming area. Since the lifeguards saw him pass the barrier, they called out a helicopter to rescue the man.

“He was a bit naive,” said Laurent Saintespes, senior officer at Biarritz airbase to AFP. “But at a time when the Olympics are taking place in London you have to see the funny side of things.”

It’s interesting to note that the longest distance ever swum unassisted in open water was set by Veljko Rogosic when he swan across the Adriatic Sea. The Londoner is attempting to swim a distance of more than 25 times of that record.

Benoit Lecomte was the first man to swim the Atlantic Ocean, but it was assisted. He did it in 1998 with wetsuits, an elctromagnetic field to ward off sharks and a presence of a support boat where he would rest and eat after swimming 8 hours a day. The journey took him 73 days.

Source: YAHOO NEWS