According to the BBC, 24-year-old Tom Robinson attempted to become the youngest person to row across the Pacific Ocean.
Robinson’s trip began in Peru in July of 2016. He planned to arrive in Australia in December.
On Thursday, Robinson’s final day of travel, his ship sank one hundred miles off the coast of Vanuatu.
Robinson was rescued by a cruise ship after his boat overturned on the final stage of his 15-month trek worldwide. His website states that his distress beacon was activated on Thursday, causing his father to worry. According to the latest post on his website, an “unpredictably enormous wave” broke through the ship’s main hatch and flooded the homemade boat.
On Friday morning, Robinson was waiting naked on his boat for a P&O cruise ship, the Pacific Explorer, to come and pick him up. According to Robinson’s official website, he was located one hundred miles from the shore of Vanuatu, a country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. He is reportedly healthy other than suffering from some sunburn and dehydration.
On Monday, Robinson left Vanuatu in pursuit of Cairns, Australia. Robinson left Peru in July of 2022, so he had been on the road for 15 months by the time he reached this point.
The “make or break leg,” as the 24-year-old put it, would be the crossing from Vanuatu to Australia.
The young man expressed sincere gratitude to the authorities in Australia, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu, as well as the captain and crew of the Pacific Explorer, who “went out of their way” to pick up Tom, according to a message on Robinson’s website.
Robinson, who has wanted to be the youngest person to row across the Pacific Ocean since he was 14, started construction on his ship in 2021.
An Australian sailor and his dog were lost at sea for two months earlier this year before being rescued by a tuna boat. Like Robinson, Tim Shaddock and his dog Bella were traveling from Mexico to French Polynesia when they were trapped in a hurricane and forced to make an emergency landing.
The pair survived by drinking rainwater and eating raw fish.
