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Steven Callahan (born in 1952) is an American author, naval architect, inventor and sailor most notable for having survived for 76 days adrift on the Atlantic Ocean in a survival raft. Callahan recounted his ordeal in the best-selling book "Adrift: 76 days lost at sea", which was on the New York Times best-seller list for more than thirty-six weeks Callahan departed from El Hierro in the Canary Islands on January 29, 1982, in Napolean Solo, a sloop he designed and built himself. He was bound for Antigua as part of the Mini Transat 6.50 single-handed sailing race from Penzance, England. Six days out, his vessel was damaged during a night storm and sank. Callahan escaped in a small inflatable life raft. The raft drifted westward with the South Equatorial Current and the trade winds. After exhausting the meager food supplies he was able to salvage from the sinking sloop, Callahan survived by eating mahi-mahi and triggerfish that he speared, along with flying fish, barnacles and birds. He collected drinking water from two solar stills and various jury-rigged devices for collecting rainwater. While adrift, he spotted at least nine ships in the two sea lanes he crossed, but he soon concluded that he could not expect to be rescued. On the eve of his seventy-sixth day adrift, he spotted the island of Marie Galante, Guadeloupe, and fishermen picked him up just offshore the following morning. During the ordeal, he faced sharks, raft punctures, equipment deterioration, and physical and mental deterioration. He survived the ordeal and continues to enjoy sailing. A naval architect by training, Callahan holds U.S. patent 6739278 as the inventor of "the Clam", a folding rigid-bottom boat developed on the basis of his survival experience.
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