Ben Lecomte has abandoned his attempt to swim across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to California. During the last two weeks, stormy weather and repeated kit failures had beset Lecomte and his support team. He reluctantly concluded that it would be unsafe to continue.
Lecomte clocks out after swimming 2,822km in a total 610 hours. He had completed just over 30 percent of the 9,260km required to reach San Francisco. Along the way, he encountered whales, sharks, swordfish and a lot of plastic waste.
Lecomte had a couple of close encounters with sharks, but never felt threatened. Photo: Ben Lecomte
The world record attempt required that Lecomte track all his progress via GPS, to ensure that he was restarting the swim from exactly the same position each day. In between eight-hour shifts in the water, Lecomte rested on his support boat, Seeker. He had been making good progress since setting out in June, when he was able to get in the water. But squalls and storms routinely forced him to pause for days at a time. Meanwhile, his support the team dealt with repeated mechanical failures. First, Seeker‘s engine failed; the following week, the support dinghy’s engine died. Finally, in late November, irreparable damage to Seeker’s mainsail proved the final straw. Without their mainsail, the crew have been forced to use a small trysail. But Seeker carries only 15 days of fuel, not nearly enough to return the expedition to the nearest mainland if the trysail also became damaged. After a discussion with the crew, Lecomte decided to call off the swim and sail for Hawaii.
Lecomte had prepared for the swim for six years and has not yet announced whether he will try again.
In early October, Lecomte celebrated swimming 1,000 nautical miles. Photo: Ben Lecomte
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