Briton Ben Hooper begins world-record attempt to swim across Atlantic Ocean



After a delayed start, a former British policeman aiming to swim across the Atlantic finally set off Sunday from Senegal, bound for Brazil more than 1,900 miles (3,000km) away.

“Here we go,” said 38-year-old Ben Hooper, as he tugged on his goggles and said goodbye to loved ones and supporters on the beach of a hotel in Hann Bay, in the east of Dakar.

“To the whole world thank you very much for your support,” he said, before striding into the waves at the start of the record-breaking attempt, expected to take nearly five months.The father and former police officer from Gloucestershire was supposed to leave Africa’s western coast from Dakar, Senegal at the start of November but delayed his departure due to a problem with the support vessel. He postponed it again several times, until actually setting off on Sunday.

He has been preparing for over three years for the immense journey that will see him swim up to 10 hours a day across the Atlantic. “It has been a long time coming,” he said.Hooper was inspired to attempt the feat by two fearless English explorers: Ranulph Fiennes, who reached both the North and South poles overland, and Vivian Fuchs, the first man to cross the Antarctic on foot.

The Briton will rack up 1,635 nautical miles, equal to nearly 1,900 land miles (3,000km) over the course of the journey, while taking in up to 12,000 calories a day. He will don a wetsuit specially designed to make him invisible to sharks.

Hooper’s journey will be observed by a Guinness World Records representative who will join a crew of 10 supporting the swimmer.

His crossing will be filmed and can be tracked on his “Swim the Big Blue” website. Hooper has a £1m fundraising target.

Only one man has achieved a comparable feat before: Frenchman Benoit Lecomte, who swam across the Atlantic in the other direction in 1998, from Cape Cod to Quiberon in north-western France.

I hope you have enjoy reading from our blog, please do well to leave a comment and follow unveilling hidden facts for more historical stories.... 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

History of Nicéphore Niépce

Image
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French: [nisefɔʁ njɛps]; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world's oldest surviving product of a photographic process: a print made from a photoengraved printing plate in 1825. In 1826 or 1827, he used a primitive camera to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. Among Niépce's other inventions was the Pyréolophore, one of the world's first internal combustion engines, which he conceived, created, and developed with his older brother Claude Niépce. Niépce was born in Chalon-sur-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, where his father was a wealthy lawyer. His older brother Claude (1763–1828) was also his collaborator in research and invention, but died half-mad and destitute in England, having squandered the family wealth in pursuit of non-opportunities f
Read more

U.S. Entry into World War I, 1917

Image
On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. Wilson cited Germany’s violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as its attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States, as his reasons for declaring war. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917. World War I Trenches in France Germany’s resumption of submarine attacks on passenger and merchant ships in 1917 became the primary motivation behind Wilson’s decision to lead the United States into World War I. Following the sinking of an unarmed French boat, the Sussex, in the English Channel in March 1916, Wilson threatened to sever diplomatic relations with Germany unless the German Gover
Read more

James Bond

Image
  The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelisations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd, and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is With a Mind to Kill by Anthony Horowitz, published in May 2022. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny. The character—also known by the code number 007 (pronounced "double-oh-seven")—has also been adapted for television, radio, comic strip, video games and film. The films are one of the longest continually running film series and have grossed over US$7.04 billion in total at the box office, making it the fifth-hi
Read more