Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Must be OAP.

February 16, 2011 12:06 AM

To be on a raft at sea is to be on a snooker table whose frame rests on a bouncy castle. Anthony Smith, age 84, is crossing the Atlantic on his raft, the An-Tiki.
posted by grounded (18 comments total)

This seems like an incredible adventure, but that raft worries me. It doesn't look capable of handling intense waves.

Also, eponysterical.
posted by spiderskull at 12:29 AM on February 16, 2011

Anthony Smith, age 84, is crossing the Atlantic on his raft, the An-Tiki.

But not alone. He's on a raft with three other guys.

All of whom are going to die. That, or be rescued at a cost of five or ten million dollars.

If they go down, I hope they disappear without a trace. Smith is 84. He'll die a hero to other antique people. And it'll be a mystery to people who don't already have enough mysteries. Are they with Amelia Earhart and Judge Crater and Lord Lucan and the the Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers and the Princes in the Tower and Alejandro Bello Silva and Aimée du Buc de Rivéry and the honey badgers and the dingo-snatched babies on an island that would be deserted if it weren't so crowded? Ooo, it's a mystery!
posted by pracowity at 1:28 AM on February 16, 2011 [4 favorites]

That picture of the An-Tiki really does just look like a floating pool room on logs. My first thought, based on the linked quote, is there's no compass, maps, steering in there, just a snooker table and a few cases of whiskey.
posted by mannequito at 1:48 AM on February 16, 2011

just a snooker table and a few cases of whiskey.

I would totally do that. As is, it looks like they've got all the gee-gaws that prevent you from really easily killing yourself in this kind of endeavor. Which is smart.

I will henceforth only imagine them drinking their way across the Atlantic playing snooker on a table that, the drunker they get, are each convinced the other is leaning on.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:57 AM on February 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

must say i'm with pracowity here. if something goes wrong they shouldn't really be saved unless they want to pay the costs of rescue. ~$1M for Abby Sunderland for example
posted by mary8nne at 3:35 AM on February 16, 2011

I am enjoying the theory that Judge Crater took that cab to I guess a dock where he rented a boat (without anyone seeing him) and then sailed off into uncharted waters.
posted by DU at 4:18 AM on February 16, 2011

mannequito : from the An-Tiki link - state of the art navigation and communications powered by solar panels . At a quick glance it seems fairly stable and they have overcome the steering problem. As long as no major storm strikes they should be OK. They also have to watch they are not pushed too far south by the trade winds and end up in the doldrums. One of the comments got to me: Thinking of you all – you manage make the world sound big again. As for the haters remember Kon Tiki.
posted by adamvasco at 4:28 AM on February 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

must say i'm with pracowity here. if something goes wrong they shouldn't really be saved

I'm not really saying they shouldn't be saved unless they can afford the rescue. It would be a shitty and unnecessary expense -- lots o' cash to pull some geezers out of the water that would have been better spent elsewhere -- but I wouldn't want to be the one to say, "Yes, we hear them yelling for help, but let those freeloading idiots drown." When does a person's stupidity or carelessness make it OK to look the other way when that person gets into trouble? If you get drunk at a party and fall asleep in the park in the winter, should the cops walk past because you brought it on yourself? If you drive too fast and your car goes off the road and bursts into flames, should the fire department ask for your credit card information before they help you put out the fire?

I guess I might be that hardhearted if I knew it was a real zero-sum game -- that sending the ships to pick up four floundering farts would, for example, deprive 100 other people of things they need to stay alive -- but it is more likely that making a sea rescue would mean an incremental increase over the normal operating and training costs of the rescue teams and might just cost us some good but inessential things, not other lives.

Maybe they ought to be forced to buy rescue insurance before they go, such that, without evidence of such insurance, a ship could intercept them and pull them out of the water before they got where they were going? But do you make all boaters buy rescue insurance, but everyone? Starting with vacationers pedaling boats around park lakes?
posted by pracowity at 4:52 AM on February 16, 2011

My first impression of that opening sentence was that it was time again for the Bulwer-Lytton awards. I was wrong. It's Darwin awards time.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:54 AM on February 16, 2011

if something goes wrong they shouldn't really be saved unless they want to pay the costs of rescue. ~$1M for Abby Sunderland for example

Is this opt-in search and rescue going to be anything like the opt-in fire department's in libertarian wet dreams? Because that didn't work so well. I mean does the rescue diver transmit a message prior to rescue. "Will you pay for this? Eight Gajillion dollars, please?" If they say no, do you just let them drown. Tell me about the nuances of your amorality.
posted by IvoShandor at 5:23 AM on February 16, 2011

Yeah, seriously on the "let 'em drown if they can't pay" nonsense. If we want to save money, I can think of a few wars and government departments that could be cut to save a LOT more.
posted by DU at 5:24 AM on February 16, 2011 [3 favorites]

I stand in awe and pride at the continuing English eccentrics amongst us. I wish them fair winds.
posted by arcticseal at 5:51 AM on February 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

better spent elsewhere -- but I wouldn't want to be the one to say, "Yes, we hear them yelling for help, but let those freeloading idiots drown." When does a person's stupidity or carelessness make it OK to look the other way when that person gets into trouble?

You do the rescue, and send them the bill.

Actually, there's got to be some sort of precedent for this in maritime law (they're in international waters, which undoubtedly complicates things). The strange wrinkle in this case seems to be that what these men are attempting is straight-up suicide.
posted by schmod at 7:24 AM on February 16, 2011

People do stupid things for stupid reasons. These are not those people. Bravo and godspeed!
posted by ChrisHartley at 8:36 AM on February 16, 2011

well, if they make it, they'll be the third rafters to cross the atlantic
previously
posted by sineater at 10:56 AM on February 16, 2011

That's not a raft.

This is a raft.

THAT, what they've got, is party boat.
posted by alex_skazat at 11:11 AM on February 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm looking forward to them making it across the Atlantic safely. Then the haters can go on hating the aims and ambitions of other people who are audacious enough to dream big.
posted by jnnla at 11:48 AM on February 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

For the last few years I've been developing a plan for an around the world in 80(ish) weeks by ocean kayak trip that's all sorts of crazy so I wish these guys the best of luck.
posted by the_artificer at 12:22 AM on February 17, 2011