How one sailor survived 76 days lost at sea... and what he learned after

It's been over four decades since Steve Callahan was left stranded at sea - in a life raft - for 76 days after his sailboat collided with a whale on the Atlantic Ocean.

He's gained back the extreme weight he lost, re-married and gotten back on the water after the harrowing and incredible test of survival. But his life has very much been split into before and after.

'Since this happened in 1982, it's never left me,' he told Mail Sport in an exclusive interview. 

'Now, I'm 72 years old, this is something that's two and a half months of my life from when I was 30. 'And although I have, I don't know, an affinity for the story and what it means, which is more than about me, it's really about senses of connection to everything, and just being a small part in the larger, incredible universe we live in.'

That story is told in documentary '76 Days Adrift,' which was shown at New York's DOC NYC festival late last year and showcases the mental fortitude and resourcefulness that Callahan needed to survive - as well his ever-growing connection with the ecosystem that formed around him on the sea.

Callahan was 29 years old and recovering from a 'lost' marriage when he set sail on his boat, Napoleon Solo, from Newport, Rhode Island to England with a friend, with Antigua set as the eventual return destination for him alone.

But disaster struck his self-constructed boat in the Canary Islands, leaving him with a dangerously low food supply, a six-person life raft, several other gadgets (such as flares and solar stills to distill seawater) and above all - the looming threat of death.

Callahan ultimately plugged enough holes (sometimes literally), taught himself how to use the solar stills and caught enough food to just barely survive until he was rescued by fishermen on the island of Marie Galant, southeast of Guadalupe. In fact, it was the ecosystem of marine life that had formed around his raft which drew a swarm of birds above - and attracted the attention of his eventual saviors, who correctly figured that fish were nearby.

'Yes, it was a horrible event, but I saw things, I witnessed things, I learned things about the world and about myself that I could only have done in by going through that,' he said. 'I guess if there's a hopeful message to people, it is that: we go through all these things, but hidden within them are opportunities and gifts, and that includes talking to you right this minute, and doing the film.'

One lesson that Callahan learned in the two-and-a-half months stranded at sea: just how intertwined the physical and mental are.

He recalls dreaming about steak as the struggles of his his 'mind', 'body' and 'spirit' all melded into one.

'When I was young, really young, before all this happened, I think I always tried to convince myself that my mind... 'Fine, that's the leg, but the rest of me is okay,' sort of mind over matter attitude. But what this event taught me... was that it's very much a two way street.'

It's tempting to compare Callahan's journey to extreme athletic feats, like a climbing of Mount Everest, or an ultra-marathon, and he concedes that there is a sort of 'zen' that sailing can share with other sports. His initial return from England was in fact centered around a race (which he dropped out of before his boat broke).

Ultimately, though, there were no medals or scores awaiting Callahan when he was rescued.

'Once I landed, I was getting a lot of questions from people from the press all over the place, most of whom aren't mariners,' he said. 'And the inevitable question was, 'is this some kind of record? Is this some kind of record?' You know?'

'And I tried to point out to [one reporter], it's not a sporting event, it's a survival experience.

'I remarked to him, I suppose I could be the first guy around the lighthouse backwards with my pants down, and that would be some kind of record,' he later added.

Director Joe Wein, whose film built off of 1986 Callahan's 'Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea', gave his subject a bit more credit, calling him an 'expert sailor.'  

'[Sailors] think a lot about what happens when things go wrong, because they're putting themselves in a position where they could go wrong,' he said. 'And that's why, even when I'm reading the book, it's like, I would have died the first day.'

Pieced around Callahan's first-person account of the ordeal, a tiny bit of 8mm footage of him on his sailboat before the accident and an onscreen recreation of the events (including the real equipment from Callahan's trip), the film shows his painstaking process of rationing food and his fluctuating hopes of survival on a day-to-basis. 

The experience was an unwitting crash course in survival skills, of course, but also ushered in what has turned out to be a fairly consistent wave of opportunities and attention.

Callahan went on to work for Sail Magazine and Cruising World, consulted for safety equipment companies, and even lent his knowledge to the hit movie 'Life of Pi,' as they all wanted a piece of his marine expertise.

'You know, I've met people, I've gone down all kinds of roads, had all kinds of experiences that I would not have had in any other way,' he said. 'Which, again, is a reflection of being in the raft. That's something I point out to people.'

Those subsequent experiences - namely press attention, which Callahan said ratcheted up again during Covid - have also been a double-edged sword. He called that sort of publicity both 'dreadful' and 'fulfilling' and admitted it's difficult to constantly revisit the hardest trial of his life.

'It has its ups and downs. Let's just put it that way. And with the film coming out, it seems to all of a sudden be interested and has been stirred up again. And that is both flattering and at times a bit trying. Of course, I don't really want to go back into the experience itself.'

That's even true for the end of a movie. Callahan says that the final minutes of the film - which beautifully explores the connection between him and the dorados which surrounded his boat as he washes ashore - are hard for him to watch. 

'The dorados certainly, for me, were emblematic of my own spiritual belief of life and interconnectedness with everything,' he said. That we're not individuals fully, that we are just parts of an integrated whole.'

Most people will never go through a trying survival experience like Callahan, and many will find a wholly different interpretation to his experience at sea.

There is some common ground, though.

'Everybody has to deal with life,' Wein said.

'We're all mortal. We're all pretty real fragile. And I think people want to do exceptional things and push themselves.'