Tintin Forums

A German Doctor - Hannes Lindemann and The Red Sea Sharks have something in common. What is it?

I guess there's a connection of both involving travel on the sea on small makeshift craft.

In The Red Sea Sharks, Rastapopoulos tells the captain of his yacht not to pick up Tintin, Haddock and Skut from the raft, pretending to believe that they're people who are crossing the sea on a raft deliberately as an adventure. I forget his exact wording, as I don't have the book to hand, but I think he says something about having read about them in the papers.

I've just discovered on Wikipedia and other sites that Dr Hannes Lindemann is an example of a real ocean adventurer whom one might really have read about in the papers in the late 1950s, as he made two solo Atlantic crossings, first in a dug out canoe and then in a folding kayak (paddling but using homemade sails too) in 1956 and 1957 (I think).

I'd always assumed that Rastapoplulous (and thus Hergé) was making a reference to Thor Heyerdal's Kon Tiki, probably because it's the most famous (and maybe the first ) such expedition and because it involved an actual flat raft (albiet a bigger one than Tintin's and with a sail). However, the Kon Tiki voyage took place in the late 1940s, so you may be right to think that Rastapopoulos is meant to be refering to Hannes Lindemann's trips, as they would have been fresher in Hergé's mind when penning The Red Sea Sharks. There have been quite a few raft and small boat ocean crossings since Heyerdal set the example, though, and I don't know all of them or all the dates.

Anyway, is this the connection you had in mind, Ranko, or is there a more specific connection yet to be found?

Just for info: the original version mentions solitary Alain Bombard (1924-2005), who crossed the Atlantic in 1952 on a Zodiac inflatable boat.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Bombard

Thanks for that info and link, Yamilah. I'd not heard of Alain Bombard but clearly I should have - the man and his voyage sound really interesting. I love the fact that he proved you can survive on fish/plankton and a little bit of seawater alone. I'll have to try and find the book about his voyage. (According to the informative Times obituary, which you can find by following the link from the Wikipedia article, his book was translated into Engish.)

You say he's mentioned by name in the original Coke en Stock. Is he mentioned by Rastapopoulos in the place I outlined above, or by Tintin when he's trying to persuade Haddock to drink some seawater?

Well done, both of you!

I'm inclined to give a point to Balthazar and yamilah as between you you came up with the answer in a most informative way. Balthazar for the Lindemann explanation and yamilah for the Bombard link.

The actual connection I had in mind was Dr Bombards diet - plankton and seawater - which is Tintins food and drink solution should they stay on the raft for much longer. Pg 35/36/37? (I don't have the book handy)

Dr. Lindemann set out to disprove Bombards theory about plankton/seawater on one of his solo voyages as he apparently saw beer and other provisions being secretly loaded on to Bombards vessel, and was convinced that this was what sustained Bombard. On one attempt of the "diet" Lindemanns feet and legs swelled dangerously and so was forced to give up.
Later Bombards diet was dismissed as "incorrect and irresponsible"

So, good answers!
Ed, an official ruling on this?

Balthazar
You say he's mentioned by name in the original Coke en Stock. Is he mentioned by Rastapopoulos in the place I outlined above [p.38-D2], or by Tintin when he's trying to persuade Haddock to drink some seawater [p.37-A1]?

Neither the one nor the other: it's earlier, on the wide narrow panel (p.36-D1).

Yep, following Ranko's answer, I just went back to check the book and the Dr Bombard reference is there in the English version too. Tintin says, "...we'll soon be on Dr Bombard's diet: plankton and seawater."

Sorry for missing it earlier - looks like I had heard of Bombard after all (albeit without realizing it), since I must have read the Red Sea Sharks about a hundred times since I was about nine years old!

I also checked what Rastapopoulos actually says to his captain, and he says, "They're just some more of those practical jokers who drift across the ocean in a nutshell...You know, it's the three the newspapers all wrote about."

Since this is clearly a newspaper story that Rastapopoulos is making up, rather than a reference to an actual solo voyage, the answer I gave isn't all that pertinent.
I think yamilah got slightly closer than me to the specific connection that Ranko was after, by spotting the reference to the "Dr Bombard diet" that Lindemann was setting out to challenge.

Ed, an official ruling on this?

Balthazar gets one point and sets the next question.

As for yamilah, his post was not an 'answer', keeping it in line with Rule 4 (which gives that a player 10 or more points in the lead may not answer until 24 hours have elapsed). Therefore no point can be won.

Ed