The first of all the seafaring adventures I read ( at age 12, or thereabouts), it's one of those books I keep more for its nostalgia value than the literary. That said, it's a cracking read (though I have only read an English translation, I bet the French original is better), full of the usual trials and tribulations of someone setting out to prove that the impossible is not only possible, but desirable.

This crazy man sets out across the Atlantic in a rubber Zephyr dinghy, to prove that shipwrecked sailors could survive on the open sea without recourse to stored food and water. Controversy reigns as he attempts to prove that a man can live by drinking sea water (in limited quantities). ( )