A sailor who spent weeks at sea in January, survive mainly on ketchupa new, modern boat may come to him.
The beautiful gift was made thanks to the ketchup giant Heinz, who was trying to find Elvis Francois.
The company published call on social media on February 14, hoping to track down the elusive Dominica sailor. According to Heinz’s social media, they reached out to the government of Dominica, the island nation where François is from, as well as the Colombian navy, which rescued him northwest of Puerto Bolivar, Colombia.
Heinz said none of those attempts to find Francois were successful.
So the ketchup retailer began “asking the general public to try to help in the hunt,” according to a statement provided to CNN by email.
“We are also asking for credible leads to contact Elvis so we can help cover a new boat equipped with full navigation technology to avoid another disaster in the future,” the company added.
Heinz also encouraged fans to use the hashtag #FindTheKetchupBoatGuy to expand their search.
However, according to Dominican news site EmoNews, they found Francois.
The publication was published by A Live video on Facebook with Francois. The official Heinz Facebook account commented: “Unbelievable. We jumped into your DMs – let’s get Elvis his boat!”
In the update on SaturdayEmoNews shared that Heinz met Francois via Zoom.
Francois, 47, was repairing his boat near the Dutch part of the island of St. Maarten in December when his boat was dragged out to sea. He told Colombian authorities he lacked the navigational knowledge to return to shore and spent 24 days at sea. He survived on a bottle of ketchup, garlic powder and Maggi stock cubes, which he mixed with water.
According to Colombian authorities, he was rescued after a plane spotted his sailboat with the words “help” engraved on the hull.
CNN Wire™ and © 2023 contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2023 WABC-TV. All rights reserved.
