Recently, the Coast Guard released a press release about a rescue 1,100 nautical miles east of Puerto Rico — which is already so far from land that “east” becomes theoretical — and I had to reread the part about what this guy was doing out there.
Benoit Bourguet, 47, from Belgium, was competing in the World’s Toughest Row. A 3,000-mile rowing race from Spain to Antigua. Alone. In a single-man rowboat. Across one of the most unforgiving stretches of open ocean on the planet.
He made it 1,100 miles before two rogue waves flipped his boat and sent him into a life raft, where he spent 24 hours tied to his capsized vessel, waiting for someone to notice he was dying.
The Coast Guard noticed. So did the crew of the Horten, a 1,092-foot tanker hauling cargo from Germany to Guyana. They diverted 110 miles — burning 12 hours and however many thousands of gallons of fuel — to fish Bourguet out of 13-to-15-foot seas in the middle of the night.
He was dehydrated but fine. The tanker crew used a life ring because the seas were too rough for anything fancier. Then they continued on their way, because that’s what you do when you’re part of the AMVER system — a volunteer network of commercial ships that agree to save people if they happen to be nearby when someone’s life goes sideways.
The whole operation worked flawlessly. The emergency beacon fired. Coast Guard Sector San Juan picked it up. They pinged the race’s safety coordinator, who confirmed Bourguet had gone silent. They issued the AMVER callout. The Horten responded. Twelve hours later, one Belgian rower was back among the living.
Textbook. Professional. Heroic, even.
And yet.
When Did Rowing Across the Atlantic Become a Thing People Do?
The World’s Toughest Row is a real event. It has a safety coordinator. Multiple participants. Sponsors.
There are people — right now — rowing across the Atlantic in boats that are basically oversized kayaks with a sleeping compartment the size of a coffin. They do this on purpose. They pay to do this.
The race website calls it “the world’s premier ocean rowing challenge.” It’s 3,000 miles of open water, storms, shipping lanes, and the very real possibility that a wave will simply decide you’ve had enough. Which is exactly what happened to Bourguet.
Two waves. Not a hurricane. Not a freak weather event. Just two waves at the wrong angle, and suddenly a man who’d been rowing for weeks was floating in a life raft, watching his boat bob upside-down like a very expensive pool toy.
He did everything right, by the way. He had a registered EPIRB — an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. The beacon fired. The system worked. The Coast Guard found him.
But let’s not pretend this was an accident. The danger is the point. The possibility of capsizing 1,100 miles from land is baked into the experience.
The Coast Guard Doesn’t Get to Say No
When that EPIRB goes off, they respond. Every time. Whether it’s a fisherman whose engine died or a guy who decided to row to Antigua because Tuesdays were getting boring.
Lt. Kenneth Snyder, the mission coordinator, gave the official statement: “We are very proud of the seamless coordination between our Sector San Juan Command Center watchstanders and the courageous crew and captain of the motor tanker Horten.”
Which is the professional way of saying: We did our jobs, the tanker crew did theirs, and everyone lived. You’re welcome.
The Horten’s crew deserves every bit of praise. They didn’t have to divert. AMVER is voluntary. But when the call came in, they turned the ship around and spent half a day steaming toward a guy they’d never met, in seas rough enough that hauling him aboard required a life ring and probably some very creative swearing in multiple languages.
The Horten was on a commercial voyage. They had a schedule. Cargo. A destination. And they dropped all of it to pull a recreational rower out of the water because that’s what the maritime community does. Ships help ships. Ships help people. Even when those people are doing something that makes absolutely no sense.
The EPIRB Is the Only Reason This Worked
Bourguet’s emergency beacon was registered with NOAA, which means when it activated, the Coast Guard immediately knew who it belonged to, what kind of vessel, and roughly where to start looking.
Without that registration, this becomes a much longer, much harder search. Maybe they find him. Maybe they don’t. Maybe the Horten is too far away. Maybe the seas get worse.
But the beacon worked. The system worked. The infrastructure that nobody thinks about — the satellites, the databases, the watch officers staring at screens in San Juan at 2 a.m. — did exactly what it was designed to do.
Recreation Has Lost Its Mind
I’m not saying people shouldn’t be allowed to row across oceans. I’m just saying we should acknowledge that “extreme sports” now includes activities that require international maritime rescue coordination as part of the expected participant experience.
The World’s Toughest Row has a safety coordinator. It’s not tough in the “this will test your limits” sense. It’s tough in the “you might actually die and we’ve built a system to minimize that possibility” sense.
And when it goes wrong — when the waves hit, when the boat flips, when a 47-year-old Belgian is floating in a raft tied to his capsized rowboat — the Coast Guard shows up. The tankers divert. The system activates.
Bourguet is safe. The Horten is back on course. The Coast Guard has already moved on to the next case. And somewhere, right now, someone else is planning their own attempt at the World’s Toughest Row, because apparently 1,100 miles of open ocean and two rogue waves isn’t enough of a deterrent.
The ocean is still undefeated. And the Coast Guard will still be there when the next EPIRB goes off.