Australian attempting to row across Pacific rescued naked

An Australian adventurer has been rescued by a cruise ship near the remote archipelago of Vanuatu after attempting to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.

Tom Robinson's boat had capsized, leaving the adventurer clinging to the hull of his heavily modified rowing boat for almost 13 hours before he was picked up on Friday, according to a blog update posted on the expedition's website.

The 24-year-old had been hoping to become the youngest person to row solo across the world's largest, and deepest, ocean.

On his website, documenting his journey, it stated that the journey of 8,000 nautical miles (14,800 kilometers) was undertaken on "a vessel he has designed and built by hand, making landfall along the way to resupply and explore the cultures of the South Pacific."

Robinson's team said in the statement that the mission was brought to an abrupt end "by an unexpectedly large wave that came through the main hatch and flooded the cabin."

After activating his emergency distress beacon, the Australian was spotted by a plane dispatched from the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia.

Naked ambition

The cruise ship diverted to rescue Robinson and located him standing naked to the overturned hull of his homemade rowing boat, his team added, saying he "sounded well" despite "a precarious night." It was not immediately clear if he lost his clothes in the accident.

Robinson was just 1,000 nautical miles from completing his journey having set off from Peru in July 2022. He was set to to make landfall on Australia's east coast in December after stopping off in Tahiti, the Cook Islands and Vanuatu.

In 2015, British adventurer John Beeden became the first person to row solo and non-stop from North America to mainland Australia, having previously rowed across the Atlantic in 2011.

AFP contributed to this article.

Edited by: Darko Janjevic