Thursday, 4:30 PM
Rescued rower 'too scared to try' again
(Coast Guard)
A still image from a Coast Guard video shows the 23-foot rowboat abandoned by Charlie Girard.
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
Drifting today 50 miles off Provincetown, the $270,000 rowboat with its solar panels, satellite phone, MP3 player, and water purification machine may eventually wash up on the coast of France.
But Charlie Girard, 26, the Frenchman who designed the vessel and hoped to use it to break a world record, won’t be along for the ride.
"I'm too scared to try another time," Girard said today in a telephone interview from Orleans. "I think it’s my last time for this boat."
The Coast Guard released video of its rescue of Girard, who was plucked out of the Atlantic Ocean Thursday night by a helicopter and a rescue swimmer. To watch the video, click here. Girard had been chronicling his journey on his website, which shows where he called it quits -- 3,270 miles short of his goal of Tranche-sur-Mer.
"Today we will try to locate the boat and see if it's possible to save the boat," said Girard, who plans to fly back to France next week.
After being battered by 5-to 8-foot seas and 15-knot winds, Girard used his satellite phone to call a friend in Orleans for help. The friend notified the Coast Guard that Girard's 23-foot ship "had taken seven or eight rolls and was ready to come off."
"He was thrown around quite a bit and said he slammed into the side of the boat and that his lower back was bothering him," Petty Officer First Class John Hughes, the medical corpsman on the rescue mission, said in a statement.
Girard was trying to beat the record for a solo rowboat crossing of the North Atlantic, which was set in 2004 and took 62 days, 19 hours, and 48 minutes. The electrical engineer had spent three years preparing for the voyage.
Girard first set out from Orleans on June 30 but returned hours later when his boat sprang a leak. He launched a second time Wednesday and had made it 50 miles off Provincetown Thursday night when he called for help.
Girard's friend, Richard Williams, contacted that the Coast Guard at 7:20 p.m. A Jayhawk helicopter launched an hour later, and Girard had been rescued by 9 p.m. His boat was left to drift.
"When you are out at sea, it's a very unpredictable place," Petty Officer Luke Pinneo said today. "As a result, it can be very dangerous."
