Hannes Lindemann

Hannes Lindemann (b. 1922) is a German medical doctor who gained fame for two of the most audacious sailing feats of the post-World War II era. In 1955 Lindemann sailed a dugout canoe from Liberia, where he had been working as a doctor on a plantation, to the East Coast of the United States. In 1956 he duplicated the feat in a commercial Klepper folding kayak. Lindemann had no backing for either voyage, both of which were undertaken to prove to himself some of his theories regarding autonomic control and survival at sea. Lindemann later wrote up his adventures in his classic book, Alone at Sea.