Talk:Alain Bombard

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This article contains several errors (I've just read Bombard's book): - He started his trip across the Mediterranean from Monaco with Palmer - He only travelled as far as Tangier with Palmer. He crossed the Atlantic from Casablanca alone, with a short break in the Canary Islands, - They drank seawater for 3 days at a time only, and only half a litre per day, after which the kidneys can't cope with the accumulating salt without a break of several days. After that they drank juice squeezed out of fish - of which they needed to catch 3 kilos per day per person to get enough liquid. In the last half of the Atlantic crossing, Bombard managed to collect enough rainwater to give up the fish, - He didn't eat any of the emergency rations he took, which were still intact on arrival at Barbados.

Squeezing liquid out of fish is all very well, however salt-water fish live in osmotic equilibrium with the ocean, which is why their flesh is salty. Hence squeezed fish juice would also be salty. Comments? Kenneth Charles 15:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

With respect to sodium and chloride ions only the blood of hagfish (Myxinae) is truly isotonic to sea water (but not intracellular fluids). Sharks (Chonrichthyes) and lobefins (i.e. Latimeria)are essentially hypoosmotic but combat the problem by accumulating ammonnium in form of urea and trimethylamine, however they still have to excrete the excessive Na and Cl ions via the rectal gland. All other marine fish (Actinoperygii) are truly hypoosmotic and excrete excessive sodium and calcium ions via secretory cells (Keys-Wilmer) in the gills. The flesh of these fish may taste salty but is by no means isotonic to sea water. Hope that answered your question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [] (talk) 03:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a photo of Haroun Tazieff, a french vulcanologist. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haroun_Tazieff

"Le Monde" wrote a biography: http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3382,36-673856@51-673851,0.html

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 02:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Alain corrected an adventure book of mine (whilst still a MEP, in early 1990's), which erroneously stated that the self-made harpoon was barbed. He corrected this by striking the word out and remarking that he lost a number of fish. I have not added this to the body of text as it does not have a public reference to support the claim. 86.131.82.9 (talk) 17:55, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

save thousands of lives
The article currently states that he "decided to test his theory himself in order to save thousands of lives of people lost at sea".

The meaning of this doesn't really seem clear. Was he suggesting that people lost at sea could survive for extended periods and so searches should be kept going for longer? Or that if lost at sea you should follow his example and live on fish and rainwater? Or that he was hoping to come across people lost at sea and and rescue them?

If anyone can clarify that would be helpful. JJJJS (talk) 13:05, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Bombard main interest was survival of people lost at sea. After doing some research he tested his method by surviving with a number of volunteers for a few weeks in inflatable rafts anchored close to the coast living on seawater and other natural resources. (as far as I remember as I read his books more than 20 years ago) Discovering that most people still did not believe him he went for a more convincing demonstration, a "I can, so yes you can" demonstration. Of course that was not enough to convince people like Lindemann. If he cheated then he tried to convince people to use an impossible method. As according to Bombard drinking seawater only works for healthy people, for starving people it is deadly. Zadkin (talk) 08:51, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

After studying survival rates from ship wrecks Bombard concluded that fear was a major killer. He concluded that many sailors died in life-rafts because they thought that death was inevitable. He set out to save lives by proving it was possible to survive long periods at sea by living off collected rainwater, fish, plankton for vitamin C and, in times when rain was absent, drinking water squeezed from fish, or, failing that, seawater in small enough quantities so that one did not exceed a safe daily salt intake. He decided that if his trip became well known, others wrecked later would be inspired to have the courage and knowhow to stay alive and the fear factor would be reduced. He was dismayed that sailors could often be found dead in life rafts after only three days adrift - long before dehydration or hunger should have been fatal. I was very persuaded by his thesis with just one proviso - I was unsure of how much he'd taken into account hypothermia as a factor.

On the Wikipedia article as it stands, I am pretty sure that his 3 books in English are the same - all translations of "Naufragé Volontaire". I also think that comparatively too much space is given to Lindemann - that would be rectified if the article were longer. Dluogs (talk) 02:27, 4 November 2012 (UTC)