An adventurer who tried to cross the Atlantic from Florida to Britain in a homemade hamster wheel has been arrested.
Reza Baluchi, 51, was arrested 70 nautical miles off Tybee Island, Georgia, after a three-day standoff with the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Iranian national, who lives in Florida, attempted to complete the 5,000-nautical-mile journey on a human-powered ship shaped like a hamster wheel.
The device consists of a metal drum, with paddle wheels on either side that are buoyant, theoretically enabling it to run over the waves.
On August 26, the USS Coast Guard cutter Valiant intercepted him at sea before he reportedly threatened anyone attempting to arrest chewing gum that he would kill himself with a 12-inch knife and that he had a bomb aboard his ship said the Flagler County Sheriff. Office.
Baluchi’s ship, a giant hamster wheel, was declared unsafe. He used it to cross the Atlantic from Florida to Britain
Reza Baluchi (pictured during an earlier attempt) was restrained 70 miles into his journey, which he attempted to cover in a human-powered hamster wheel
On August 26, the USS Coast Guard cutter Valiant intercepted him at sea and attempted to arrest him
After two days, Baluchi finally admitted that there was no bomb on his hamster wheel and another day later he joined the officers on their boat.
He was landed on Sept. 1 and faces federal charges for obstructing boarding and violating an order issued by the port captain.
“Based on the condition of the ship—which was afloat due to wiring and buoys—USCG officers determined that Baluchi was on a manifestly unsafe voyage,” the criminal complaint filed in Florida’s U.S. court said.
It’s not Baluchi’s first time trying to use the hamster wheel to travel across the ocean.
In July 2021 he tried to travel from Miami to New York city for charity, but washed up on one Florida beach not far from where he left.
Agents from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene at a beach in Hammock, near Miami, after concerned residents reported seeing the unusual cylindrical vessel.
When they arrived, they said, they found Baluchi safe inside, without any injuries.
Baluchi allegedly told authorities he tried to sail the floating ship from Florida to New York to raise money for charity, but that he “encountered some complications that brought him back to shore,” the Sheriff’s Office explained. Flagler County Office in a statement. Facebook message after the rescue.
“My goal is not just to raise money for the homeless, to raise money for the Coast Guard, to raise money for the police, to raise money for the fire department,” Baluchi said. FOX 35 news.
“They’re in government service, they’re doing it for security, and they’re helping other people.”
Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Deputies Responding to the Scene of a Hammock, Florida Beach in 2021
Baluchi told FOX 35 that he planned the trip to raise money for charity
He reportedly carries a GPS with him on all his treks so that family and friends know where he is at all times, and carries enough food and water to keep him safe and “survive for days and weeks anywhere ‘ says his friend. Gina Laspina told the local news channel.
But this is far from the first time Baluchi has had to be rescued from one of his floating ships, which he calls a “bubble.”
Baluchi had to be rescued from a ‘hydro bubble’ near Saint Augustine in 2014 when he attempted to travel 3,000 miles from Florida to Bermuda.
And in 2016 he had to be rescued off the coast of Jupiter. The Miami Coast Guard spent 12 hours trying to lure him out of his homemade inflatable bubble after warning him not to make a “life-threatening” 3,000-mile ocean voyage.
Prior to that trip, Baluchi had received a written warning from the Coast Guard not to undertake the five-month journey from Pompano Beach, Florida, en route to Bermuda via the Caribbean. Officials said it was too dangerous and endangered him and other sailors.