Has someone really swam across the Atlantic Ocean?

On doing some research on open water swimming I came across a one Benoit Lecomte who claims to have swam across the Atlantic Ocean in July of 1998. Parts of the story can be found here. Which seem to be basically the same on all the other web sites I have looked at.

Basically he says that he swam from Cap Cod to Quiberon France, a distance of 3736 nautical miles, in a time of 72 days. That comes out to an average of ~52 miles a day, and in the 6-8 hours he says he swam, that’s around 6.5 nautical miles per hour. Granted that tides and current will greatly help with speed, but that’s an incredible amount of swimming to do.

He does say he used both a wetsuit, which is used for buoyancy, and flippers which will help for speed, but you still have to kick and swim. Except that being that long in salt water will do a number on your body, at least from a swimming standpoint. Many open water swimmers after a few hours in the water get sores on their body from rubbing, he says nothing of this.

I can find nothing on other news sites, and to me something of this sort would have been reported. With all the other things that people do, boating around the world, the new plane flight around the world, something of this magnitude would have been reported. Nothing I can find on Guinness World records either. I find his claim to be BS quite frankly, but maybe someone here remembers hearing something other then what this man has said.

On another question, anyone want to make a guess as to how long it would take someone to swim the Atlantic.

Some more links:

http://www.legendinc.com/Pages/ArchivesCentral/COTDArchives/1998/10198.html
http://www.s-t.com/daily/07-98/07-17-98/b03li045.htm

The other records listed by Guinness is the Mississippi River by Martin Strel. He took 68 days to swim the 2,360 miles, so the distances/pace are comparable.

[nitpick]

Okay… I have to do this. Someone should really hit me over the head with a copy of “Eats(,) Shoots and Leaves.”

It’s swim, swam, and HAS SWUM. She swims. Yesterday she swam. Don’t worry about her drowning; she has swum before.
I know it sounds wrong, but it’s not.
[/nitpick]

Thank you, Zahava424. That’s one of my pet peeves. Can we do “I have drank,” too, while we’re at it?
Okay, everyone back into the water.

I just about remember this from news reports at the time. I also recall some claims, possibly unfounded, that he drifed further in the 16 hours/day he spent resting in his boat than he ever swam in the 8 hours he was in the water.

Except that 2300 miles in 68 days is 34 miles a day, nowhere near the same distance, and with a current.

I just find it strange that someone has done something so hard and yet no one seems to know any more about it then a few websites, and his own site is not up and I haven’t seen any that have been cached.

I’m pretty sure that it was discussed here at the time but I can’t find anthing on search. Maybe during the winter of lost content?

Anyway I seem to recall that the consensus was that he spent more time on the boat than in the water and that most of the credit should go to the support crew. I’m not saying that what he did wasn’t extraordinary, but I don’t think he can truly claim to have swum ‘across the atlantic’ if he spent most of the time on a sailing boat.
(If I’m remembering the facts correctly.)

Hmm, what kind of proof are you looking for?

I remember watching him arrive on TV in 1998 and BBC TV news coverage of him while swimming across the Atlantic. Google pulls up over 100+ links to what he did including a BBC page.

From what I saw on TV, he spent most of his time being pulled along by his boat rather than swimming as such.

Hey lookie here…the BBC page about Benoit Lecomte swimming across the Atlantic.

Here’s another BBC article about his plan to swim from New York to Washington.

Something like this actually, being pulled along and not swimming. Sounds a lot like cheating to me. I did see that there were quite a lot of websites, but none really said anything. I’m guessing if he did spend more time in a boat then in the water that’s why they don’t say much.

Lecomte had a sailboat follow him as an assist vehicle. He slept and rested aboard. The sails were dropped whenever he was aboard (I don’t know whether a sea anchor was deployed), so all forward movement either came from ocean currents or his swimming.

I’d guess that he rode the Gulf Stream until it runs out Mid-Atlantic, then swam down to France.