Benoit Lecomte (born 1967) is a French-born long-distance swimmer (now a naturalized American citizen) who swam several sections of the Atlantic Ocean in 1998. Many major media outlets initially wrongly reported that he swam the entire distance across the ocean, but the claim was dismissed and is officially recognized by Guinness World Records since there is certainty about the distance that Lecomte covered swimming. Atlantic Ocean swim From 16 march to 25 September 1998, Lecomte undertook a swim in stages from Hyannis, Massachusetts to Quiberon, Brittany, France, including a one-week stop in the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago. During his 73-day, journey, Lecomte was accompanied by a sailboat that had an electromagnetic field for to ward off sharks. He was accompanied by a crew of three aboard the sailboat, where he could rest and eat between each swimming period. Lecomte typically spent eight hours swimming each day in sessions of two to four hours. The stated purpose of the swim was to raise money for cancer research as a tribute to his father. Controversy Since there is no standard definition of "swimming across the Atlantic", there is uncertainty about the distance that Lecomte actually covered swimming in the water rather than riding in a boat with the prevailing currents. According to the Rocky Mountain News, Lecomte would have had to average to have swum the entire distance, 3 to 4 times as fast as other long-distance swimmers. Other Atlantic Ocean swim claims Guy Delage – swim from Cape Verde Islands to Barbados in 1994 Jennifer Figge – swim from Cape Verde Islands to Trinidad in 2009 The Pacific Swim Benoit Lecomte began his swim of the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday June 5th 2018. He began in Chōshi Japan in the Kantō region, and hoped to make it to California. The distance to be covered was approximately and hoped to end up in San Francisco, California. He expected the trip to take about six months. Part of the reason for the swim was to raise awareness about sustainability and the impact of excessive human garbage polluting the world's oceans. Lecomte said: "Before anything else I am a father and as a father the future of my children concerns me because, as we all know, our way of life is not sustainable. I don't want to be passive and pass on to my children the liability we are tagging on to our environment.