Callahan departed from
Newport, Rhode Island, United States, in 1981 on the
Napoleon Solo, a
sloop he designed and built himself, single-handedly sailed the boat to Bermuda, and continued the voyage to
England with friend Chris Latchem. He had left
Cornwall that autumn, bound for
Antigua as part of the
Mini Transat 6.50 single-handed sailing race from
Penzance, England, but dropped out of the race in
La Coruña,
Spain. Bad weather had sunk several boats in the fleet and damaged many others, including
Napoleon Solo. Callahan made repairs and continued voyaging down the coast of Spain and
Portugal, out to
Madeira and the
Canaries. He departed from
El Hierro in the Canary Islands on January 29, 1982, still headed for Antigua. In a growing gale, seven days out, his vessel was badly holed by an unknown object during a night storm, and became swamped, although it did not sink outright due to watertight compartments Callahan had designed into the boat. In his book, Callahan writes that he suspects the damage occurred from a collision with a whale. Unable to stay aboard
Napoleon Solo as it filled with water and was overwhelmed by breaking seas, Callahan escaped into a six-man Avon inflatable
life raft, measuring about across. He stood off in the raft, but managed to get back aboard several times to dive below and retrieve a piece of cushion, a sleeping bag, and an emergency kit containing, among other things, some food, navigation charts, a short spear gun, flares, torch, 3
solar stills for producing
drinking water and a copy of
Sea Survival, a survival manual written by
Dougal Robertson, a fellow ocean survivor. Before dawn, a big breaking sea parted the life raft from
Napoleon Solo and Callahan drifted away. The raft drifted westward with the
South Equatorial Current and the
trade winds. After exhausting the meager food supplies he had salvaged from the sinking sloop, Callahan survived by catching food. He mainly ate
mahi-mahi, as well as
triggerfish, which he speared, along with
flying fish,
barnacles, and birds that he captured. The sea life was all part of an
ecosystem that evolved around his raft and followed him for across the ocean. He collected drinking water from two solar stills (the third of which he had cut open in order to know how to use them) and various
jury-rigged devices for collecting
rainwater, which together produced on average just over a pint of water per day. Callahan's use of an
EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon) and many flares did not trigger a rescue. EPIRBs were not monitored by satellites at the time, and he was in too empty a part of the ocean to be heard by aircraft. Ships did not spot his flares. While adrift, he spotted nine ships, most in the two
sea lanes he crossed, but from the beginning, Callahan knew that he could not rely upon rescue but instead must, for an undetermined time, rely upon himself and maintaining a shipboard routine for survival. He routinely exercised, navigated, prioritized problems, made repairs, fished, improved systems, and built food and water stocks for emergencies. On the eve of April 20, 1982, he spotted lights on the island of
Marie Galante, south east of
Guadeloupe. The next day, on Callahan's 76th day afloat in the raft,
fishermen picked him up just offshore, drawn to him by birds hovering over the raft, which were attracted by the ecosystem that had developed around it. During the ordeal, he faced
sharks, raft punctures, equipment deterioration, physical deterioration, and mental stress. Having lost a third of his weight and being covered with scores of saltwater sores, he was taken to a local hospital and spent six weeks recovering. During his journey, Callahan experienced a few positive elements aside from suffering, describing the night sky at one point as "A view of heaven from a seat in hell." He still enjoys sailing and the sea, which he calls the world's greatest wilderness. Since his survival drift, he's made dozens of additional offshore passages and ocean crossings, most of them with no more than two other crew. This incident is featured on the ''
I Shouldn't Be Alive'' episode "76 Days Adrift". Callahan's story also featured on an episode of British survival expert
Ray Mears's television series
Extreme Survival, and on an episode of the
History Channel series
Vanishings!. ==
Life of Pi==