French swimmer Ben Lecomte begins record Pacific crossing attempt; will swim 8 hours a day for 6 months

Tokyo, June 5: A French swimmer has set off from Japan aiming to become the first person to swim across the Pacific Ocean.

 

Ben Lecomte will swim for eight hours a day and will aim to cover almost 50km each swim for more than six months as he heads towards the US west coast. He is hoping to raise awareness of climate change. A team of scientists will conduct research during the almost 8,850 kilometre swim.

At the end of each day, his team will GPS mark his location before he climbs aboard Discoverer so he can be dropped at the same spot in the morning.

The team will study plastic debris and examine how the Fukushima nuclear disaster has affected the ocean.

Lecomte, who swam almost 6,000km across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998, said he hopes his swim will bring attention to the growing problem of ocean pollution. "I've been swimming for a long time and the change just in the last 30 years is troubling, that you can see so much degradation," he said.

Researchers are planning to use the data to assess the distribution of radioactive material among the Garbage Patch from the Japan tsunami in 2011, and to study the transport of potentially invasive species using ocean plastic as rafts.

They will also be collecting data on Lecomte's physical condition and mental health as part of collaborations with 27 different institutes, including NASA and Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

He said that physical fitness is far less of a factor in his success than his psychological wellbeing, and that he will use his family as motivation to keep going.