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The Voluntary Castaway: Alain Bombard
Paperback
Adventurers & ExplorersBiographies General
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Publisher: Michael Webster
Published: Dec 11 2025
Pages: 170
Weight: 0.45
Height: 0.39 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
committed an act of magnificent insanity: he destroyed all his provisions and set off alone across the Atlantic in an 18-foot inflatable raft named L'Hérétique-The Heretic.
His mission was not for glory, but for survival: to prove that the shipwrecked die not of hunger or thirst, but of fear and despair.
For 88 days, Bombard was completely reliant on the ocean, surviving on raw fish, plankton, and minimal quantities of seawater. He pushed his mind and body to the absolute limit, emerging near Barbados emaciated and critically ill, but triumphantly alive, armed with irrefutable proof that the sea is a provider, not a tomb.
But the ordeal was only the beginning. This is the definitive story of the man who integrated three lives into one monumental purpose: the Doctor who formed the theory, the Survivor who collected the data, and the Politician who spent the next fifty years translating his sacrifice into universal protection.
From the solitude of the open ocean to the legislative battles of the European Parliament, discover how Bombard rewrote global maritime law, mandated the life raft provisions that save lives today, and bequeathed the world the ultimate doctrine of anti-fatalism. Approx.170 pages, 30000 word count
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