A man was arrested last week after trying to “run to London” across the Atlantic Ocean in what some have described as a homemade “hamster wheel.”
Reza Baluchi was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard off Tybee Island, Georgia, on Aug. 26 in the craft. He was about 70 miles offshore, according to the BBC.
Baluchi told officials he was headed to London in the “bubble.” Coast Guard officials told Baluchi to get off the vessel and onto a Coast Guard ship.
When officers approached the craft in a smaller boat and asked him to disembark, he said he had a 12-inch knife and would kill himself, so they returned to their ship, which remained nearby, according to a criminal complaint.
Coast Guard officials came back the next day and Baluchi not only threatened to kill himself, he also claimed he had a bomb. Officials later determined there was no bomb onboard.
Baluchi refused to leave the vessel for three days, Coast Guard officials said.
According to Baluchi, who is a marathon runner, he planned to run inside the vessel moving himself the 4,300 miles across the Atlantic to England.
“Based on the condition of the vessel - which was afloat as a result of wiring and buoys - US Coast Guard officers determined Baluchi was conducting a manifestly unsafe voyage,” the criminal complaint reads.
Baluchi is facing charges of obstruction of a boarding and violation of a Captain of the Port order, according to The New York Times.
Florida man arrested after trying to cross Atlantic in hamster wheel vessel https://t.co/nDW0KtshaC
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 6, 2023
This is not the first time Baluchi has had a run-in with the Coast Guard.
In 2021, he was arrested after being rescued while trying to ride from Florida to New York.
“I know what I’m doing,” he said in the 2021 interview, in which he noted that the purpose of his attempted trips was to raise money to help homeless people and for other charitable causes. He added, “I am not dumb.”
According to the Daytona News-Journal, Baluchi made a similar attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 2014 when he was rescued by the Coast Guard in another homemade contraption. in 2016 he had to be rescued off the coast of Jupiter, Florida.
