That's a story that seems more credible than that of the 2 Americans drafted in October 2017 . On Monday 25 December, a 54-year-old Polish sailor was found on his boat off the coast of La Réunion. He said he had left the Comoros 7 months earlier. Since then he has been drifting!
After spending 10 years in the United States, this Pole went to India in 2014 to buy his boat. It is a lifeboat that the sailor has fitted out himself and put a mast on it. Forced to leave the Comoros, he went to sea in the hope of going to South Africa to find work. But soon the engine died and the boat lost its rudder.
With no means of communication or navigational instruments (the batteries are empty) and with only a month's worth of provisions, the sailor says he drifted between the Maldives, Indonesia and Mauritius before being rescued off Reunion Island.
It was a sailboat that spotted him at the Pointe du Gouffre and alerted the emergency services. An SNSM launch then towed the boat and the sailor to the port. Since then, he has been taken care of by the association of the Friends of the Sailors.
With only his cat for company, the sailor claims to have survived by eating half a bag of Chinese soup a day, sometimes with the products of his fishing, mainly bonito.
As a European citizen, the sailor can stay in Reunion Island but without money he doesn't know yet what will become of him. He would like to be able to work to repair his boat and leave.
