Anthony Smith (explorer)

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Anthony John Francis Smith (30 March 1926 – 7 July 2014) was, among other things, a writer, sailor, balloonist and former ''

Tomorrow's World ''Tomorrow's World'' is a former British television series about contemporary developments in science and technology. First transmitted on 7 July 1965 on BBC1, it ran for 38 years until it was cancelled at the beginning of 2003. The ''Tomorro ...

'' television presenter. He was perhaps best known for his bestselling work ''The Body'' (originally published in 1968 and later renamed ''The Human Body''), which has sold over 800,000 copies worldwide and tied in with a

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television series, ''The Human Body'', known in America by the name '' Intimate Universe: The Human Body''. The series aired in 1998 and was presented by Professor

Robert Winston Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston, (born 15 July 1940) is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and Labour Party politician. Early life Robert Winston was born in London to Laurence Winston and Rut ...

Life and work

Smith read

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, became a

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

in the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

and went on to write as a science

correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...

for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

''. He also worked extensively in both television and radio, writing for several natural history programmes. Smith's first expedition was to

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, exploring the

Qanat A qanat or kārīz is a system for transporting water from an aquifer or water well to the surface, through an underground aqueduct; the system originated approximately 3,000 BC in what is now Iran. The function is essentially the same across ...

underground irrigation tunnels. This expedition was documented in his book ''Blind White Fish in Persia''; a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of fish that he discovered and is named after him ('' Eidinemacheilus smithi''). In 1977 he returned to Iran with a film crew and two cave divers Martyn Farr and Richard Stevenson who explored the cave where he had found the new species of fish.

Ballooning

In 1962, he led "The Sunday Telegraph Balloon Safari" expedition (with

Douglas Botting Douglas Scott Botting (22 February 1934 – 6 February 2018) was an English explorer, author, biographer and TV presenter and producer. He wrote biographies of naturalists Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell (the former also being a personal frien ...

), Alan Root and others, flying a

hydrogen balloon Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, and ...

from

Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...

to East Africa, and then across the

Ngorongoro The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (, ) is a protected area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Ngorongoro District, west of Arusha City in Arusha Region, within the Crater Highlands geological area of northern Tanzania. The area is nam ...

crater (documented in ''Throw Out Two Hands''). The following year he became the first Briton to cross the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

in a balloon.

''Jolly Boat''

In the late 1990s, Smith was instrumental in securing an exhibit for the

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

, London. The ''Jolly Boat'', a small lifeboat launched from the SS ''Anglo Saxon'' on 21 August 1940 after its sinking by the

German auxiliary cruiser Widder ''Widder'' (HSK 3) was an auxiliary cruiser (''Hilfskreuzer'') of Nazi Germany's '' Kriegsmarine'' that was used as a merchant raider in the Second World War. Her Kriegsmarine designation was Schiff 21, to the Royal Navy she was Raider D. The name ...

. It carried the surviving members of the ship's crew west across the Atlantic Ocean for sixty-eight days, before finally landing in

Eleuthera Eleuthera () refers both to a single island in the archipelagic state of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas and to its associated group of smaller islands. Eleuthera forms a part of the Great Bahama Bank. The island of Eleuthera incorporates the s ...

. By the time the ''Jolly Boat'' made landfall, only two of the seven survivors of the attack were still alive. For the next fifty years, the boat was kept by the

Mystic Seaport Museum Mystic Seaport Museum or Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic, Connecticut is the largest maritime museum in the United States. It is notable for its collection of sailing ships and boats and for the re-creation of the craf ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. Smith, personally interested in the story of the lifeboat, secured its return in 1997, after which it was restored for display in 1998 at the Imperial War Museum, London.

Crossing the Atlantic by raft

On 30 January 2011, Smith and a crew of three volunteers (Andrew Bainbridge, David Hildred and John Russell, none younger than 56) departed from

La Gomera La Gomera () is one of Spain's Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. With an area of , it is the third smallest of the eight main islands of this archipelago. It belongs to the province of Santa Cruz de Tene ...

in the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

in a custom-built raft, with the intention of crossing the Atlantic Ocean within three months, eventually arriving in

. The raft, which was given the name ''An-Tiki'' in reference to the ''Kon-Tiki'' raft used by

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

explorer and writer

Thor Heyerdahl Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000&nb ...

in his 1947 expedition from South America to the

Polynesian islands Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...

, was assembled during November and December 2010. The raft's superstructure consisted of a small hut within which the crew shared two bunks, while the hull was fashioned from plastic gas pipes which carried either supplies for

ballast Ballast is material that is used to provide stability to a vehicle or structure. Ballast, other than cargo, may be placed in a vehicle, often a ship or the gondola of a balloon or airship, to provide stability. A compartment within a boat, ship, ...

or air for buoyancy. Its facilities were designed to be modest and it was equipped with a gas

stove A stove or range is a device that burns fuel or uses electricity to generate heat inside or on top of the apparatus, to be used for general warming or cooking. It has evolved highly over time, with cast-iron and induction versions being develope ...

for cooking and

telegraph pole A utility pole is a column or post typically made out of wood used to support overhead power lines and various other public utilities, such as electrical cable, fiber optic cable, and related equipment such as transformers and street lights. It c ...

s which would act as masts, as well as

solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

s, a wind generator and a foot pump which would power its electronic devices, as the crew used computers and digital cameras to communicate with the outside world and document their journey. According to an article Smith wrote for ''The Daily Telegraph'', in its final form the ''An-tiki'' measured approximately by . Its hut is approximately by . Smith had been interested in crossing the Atlantic by raft as far back as 1952, when he devised a plan to begin somewhere in the

and to rely on fresh fish as his source of food. "I was a student then and I ran out of money," he told the ''Telegraph''. "But the idea has always niggled me." The voyage began as a concise advert listed in the ''Telegraph'' in 2006, which simply read: "Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Famous traveller requires 3 crew. Must be OAP. Serious adventurers only." From his applications, Smith recruited Robin Batchelor, also a professional balloonist, to help design and build the raft. AnTiki's crew consisted of David Hildred, a yacht master and civil engineer, and two experienced seamen Andy Bainbridge and John Russell. The crew set sail with the intention of raising money for the clean water charity WaterAid and completed their journey successfully on the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean. Smith then recruited another crew to join him on the final leg of the voyage to Eleuthera – Alison Porteous, Bruno Sellmer, Nigel Gallaher and Leigh Rooney. They departed St. Maarten on 6 April 2012 and 24 days later were washed up on the island of Eleuthera in a storm.

Books

Smith continued both travelling and writing well into his later years whilst residing in London, UK. In 2000 he wrote ''The Weather: The Truth About The Health Of Our Planet'' and in 2003 wrote ''The Lost Lady of the Amazon: The Story of Isabela Godin and Her Epic Journey'', detailing the experiences of

Jean Godin des Odonais Jean Godin des Odonais (5 July 1713 Saint-Amand-Montrond, France - 1 March 1792 Paris) was a French cartographer and naturalist. Biography Godin des Odonais had joined the world's first geodesy expedition to the equator, led by Charles Marie de ...

. ''The Old Man and the Sea: A True Story of Crossing the Atlantic by Raft'' was published posthumously in 2015.

Death

Smith died from acute

respiratory failure Respiratory failure results from inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, meaning that the arterial oxygen, carbon dioxide, or both cannot be kept at normal levels. A drop in the oxygen carried in the blood is known as hypoxemia; a rise ...

on 7 July 2014, in Oxford, England, aged 88.

References

Obituary published in The Daily Telegraph 17 July 2014.
*The Great Caving Adventure by Martyn Farr oxford Illustrated Press 1984

External links

*
Anthony Smith's ''An-Tiki'' website and blog

Desert Island Discs appearance - 3 February 1973
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Anthony 1926 births 2014 deaths People from Taplow Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford English balloonists English science writers English television presenters English explorers