Hannes Lindemann (28 December 1922 – 17 April 2015) was a German doctor, navigator and sailor. NOTE: Scroll to Page 92 - "Ocean crossing in canoe" - "In an incredible test of human endurance, a German doctor crosses the Atlantic in a canoe, the smallest craft ever to cross an ocean without outside help." - (and more). He made two solo transatlantic crossings, one in a sailing

dugout canoe A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek – ''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' ( ...

made while working in Liberia and the second in a 17-foot Klepper Aerius II double

folding kayak A folding kayak is a direct descendant of the original Inuit kayak made of animal skins stretched over frames made from wood and bones. A modern folder has a collapsible frame made of some combination of wood, aluminium and plastic, and a skin ...

, modified to carry two masts and an outrigger. His book ''Alone at Sea'' documents the trips, which were totally unassisted. He was motivated to make the trips by an interest in how the human body and mind respond to survival at sea, a theme which the

Kon-Tiki The ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named ''Kon-Tiki'' after the Inca god Viracocha, fo ...

(1947) and

Alain Bombard Alain Bombard (; Paris, 27 October 1924 – Paris, 19 July 2005) was a French biologist, physician and politician famous for sailing in a small boat across the Atlantic Ocean without provision. He theorized that a human being could very well su ...

(1952) explored in earlier ocean voyages. His kayak was delivered to the Canary Islands, before sailing to the Caribbean. He very rarely paddled, though used a paddle when rudders broke. He carried of supplies, much of it canned comestibles, some of which he ditched on setting out as the kayak was too heavy. He caught fish and gathered rainwater to supplement his rations. The crossing to

Saint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. With a population of 41,486 as of January 2019 on an area of , it encompasses the southern 44% of the divided island of Saint Martin, while the northe ...

took him 72 days. Towards the end of that trip he encountered storms of "''wind force 8, gusting to force 9''" when he capsized twice during a period of hallucinations brought on by fatigue and sleep deprivation. At times he described what might be described as tantric or altered states – safe in the cocoon of his sodden kayak while storms raged around him for days. He was convinced that in a survival situation the mind gave up long before the body (or indeed the craft), and to help accomplish the second trip he trained himself in sleep deprivation as well as mentally, which he described at times as prayer, meditation,

autogenic training Autogenic training is a desensitization-relaxation technique developed by the German psychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz by which a psychophysiologically determined relaxation response is obtained. The technique was first published in 1932. St ...

and ingraining his sub-conscious with affirmational mottos like "I will make it" and "Keep going west". In the light of these experiences, Lindemann concluded that

had been supplied with fresh water and some other food supplies on two occasions, and could not have survived on salt-water and fish, as claimed.

References

External links

Deutsches Museum (Bonn)

First Atlantic Crossing in Canoe -Video Newsreel film

Ebook: Alone at Sea
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindemann, Hannes 1922 births 2015 deaths German male canoeists German sailors Sportspeople from Bonn German male writers

See also

References

External links