Category Archives: boat

Mar6

lost and found and lost and found again.

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Update on my recent post – great news:
After enlisting the public’s help to find Elvis Francois, a sailor who survived weeks lost at sea off of ketchup and seasonings, ketchup giant Heinz has finally tracked him down – and plans to gift him a new boat.

On February 14, the company published a call for help on social media, saying they were struggling to get in touch with Francois. The Dominica-born sailor made headlines after he spent 24 days adrift in the Caribbean Sea in January. After being rescued by the Colombian navy, Francois, 47, told officials that he had survived off of a bottle of ketchup, garlic powder, and Maggi stock cubes, which he mixed with water. Ketchup helped him survive weeks lost at sea.

Heinz told CNN on Monday that they found Francois with the help of local reporters in Dominica working for the publication EmoNews. The company had previously said that they hoped to gift him “a new, state-of-the-art boat” to celebrate his safe return. “We were able to connect with him and discuss the best way help support him and his family,” a Heinz representative told CNN. “We (Heinz) and Elvis are currently working out the logistical details of gifting him his new boat.”

The company emphasized the central role social media played in helping locate the sailor. “Anyone who shared, liked or commented on the brand’s post helped broaden the reach and played an important part in finding Elvis,” said Heinz.

Francois was repairing his boat off the island of Saint Martin in December when his boat was pulled out to sea. He told Colombian authorities that he lacked the navigational knowledge to return to shore and spent 24 days lost at sea. He was rescued after a plane spotted his sailboat with “help” engraved into the hull, according to Colombian authorities.

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“sometimes,” she whispered, “you need to be lost in order to be found.”
 -danika stone

 

 

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credits: zoe sottile, cnn, emonews, columbian navy press office

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb25

elvis has left the boat.

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Heinz wants to find the man who survived nearly a month at sea with nothing but ketchup and seasonings to help him buy a new boat

Heinz is looking for people to help the company find a treasure – but it’s not gold. After they learned that a man who survived a month at sea with nothing but ketchup and seasonings, the company said it wants to find him to help him buy a new boat. But so far, they haven’t been able to find him.

In a virtual message in a bottle, the company put out a request for assistance on Instagram last week.Elvis Francois was working on his boat in St. Maarten in December when he accidentally started drifting out to sea. The weather had suddenly changed, and he said in a video released by the Colombian Navy, who rescued him, that he had lost his ability to navigate.

“I tried to [go] back to port, but I lost track because it took me a while to mount the sail and fix the sail,” he said. “…I call my friends, my coworkers. They tried to contact me, but they lost service. There was nothing else I could do than sit down and wait.”

He wrote out the word “help” on the back of his boat, and he was eventually rescued – after 24 days with nothing but “a bottle of ketchup…garlic powder and Maggi [soup].”

The navy said that officers took Francois to the Port of Cartagena to receive medical care and that he was “found to be in good health.” While there, they also started the necessary actions to help him return home.

“We’re setting this message adrift into the sea of the internet, because if anyone can help us find him, it’s you,” the company said. “If you or anyone you know can help us get in contact with Elvis Francois, please drop us a DM.”

In a statement to CBS News on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Heinz said that they want to “gift” Elvis a “new state-of-the-art boat.” That boat, they said, will be “equipped with full navigational technology to avoid another disaster in the future.” It’s currently an international effort, with Heinz markets “around the world” getting involved. “We’re hoping to spread the word far and wide so Heinz can finally gift the new boat to Elvis,” the company said.

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“for whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always our self we find in the sea.”

-e.e. cummings

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source credit: liz cohen, cbs news

Apr13

a poem of motion.

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early evening in the park on the river in spring

crew teams have returned with the birds. 

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“all were merged into one smoothly working machine;

they were, in fact, a poem of motion, a symphony of swinging blades.”

-Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: 9 Americans and Their Epic Quest For Gold at the 1936 Olympics

 

 

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argo park, ann arbor, michigan, usa – april 2021