Heinz FINALLY RECOVERS THE SEAMAN WHO SURVIVED BY EATING Ketchup While Lost At Sea

Have you ever considered what would occur if you got lost at sea? unexpectedly, perhaps? Will you make it out alive? How will you respond? You have probably thought of some of these questions. This seaman survived by only eating Ketchup for a month.  I am mind blown with that.

After launching a social media campaign with the hashtag #FindtheKetchupBoatGuy that quickly gained popularity, the Pittsburgh-based Heinz food company contacted the saved sailor, Elvis François, about purchasing him a new boat. When François was eventually saved, he had left his old boat behind.

“We received thousands of likes, shares and messages of kindness in our search to find Elvis François,” a statement on Heinz’s Instagram page said on Monday. “It was an incredible group effort across six continents that led to the hundreds of articles and leads and our eventual contact with Elvis.”

The #FindtheKetchupBoatGuy campaign is a kind of epilogue to the survival story that began in December when François' sailboat was swept away by Caribbean currents as he was making repairs to it off the Dutch Antilles island of Sint Maarten. He survived on a bottle of Heinz ketchup, garlic powder, Maggi soup cubes, rainwater, and he scrawled the word "help" in English on the boat's hull during his 24-day voyage.

Then, about 120 nautical miles north-west of Colombia's Guajira peninsula, he used a mirror to signal a passing aircraft to come in for a landing. François left his sailboat at sea and was found in Cartagena, Colombia, by the crew of a container ship. Heinz wanted to find him and give him a new boat after realizing that he had survived thanks to three daily doses from one of its ketchup bottles.

The #FindtheKetchupBoatGuy campaign reached nearly 5 million users and garnered more than 4,000 likes, a record for Heinz. Dominica's Emo News noticed the campaign and got in touch with François, setting the stage for him to speak with Heinz. François said he "didn't know what to think" about Heinz's efforts, but he seemed to welcome the prospect."I lost all that I had on the boat," he told Emo News.’