Sailing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic is quite an accomplishment, but what these guys did was a bit more daring. First, they built their own tiny raft out of pipes tied together, and second, the four sailors proved that age is not a limiting factor:
Talk about your ancient mariners! British adventurer Anthony Smith, 85, and a senior citizen crew have sailed their tiny raft, An-Tiki, some 3,000 miles from Portugal's Canary Islands to St. Martin in the Caribbean. They arrived this morning.
Smith and his three-man crew wanted to show what the elderly can do when they set their minds and hearts to it. [...]
According to the adventure newsletter Expedition News, Smith's latest escapde began more than three years ago when he placed the following advertisement in a London newspaper, The Daily Telegraph: "Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Famous traveler requires 3 crew. Must be OAP [Old Age Pensioner]. Serious adventurers only." He got hundreds of eager replies from men fed up with gardening and playing bridge with their wives.
Makes you wonder about the factual accuracy of the entire article!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
That being said, I think it's awesome that they did this, but I still think Kon-Tiki and Thor Heyerdahl should get an honorable mention in this post, since he was a real pioneer in the field of traveling across oceans using primitive rafts. To anyone interested in learning more about Kon-Tiki, I recommend this documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGooopCTmpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl#The_boats_Ra_and_Ra_II