84-year-old Brit to lead four-man team in Atlantic raft sail

London, Jan.16 (ANI): A 84-year-old Britisher, Anthony Smith, will lead a team of adventurers in a sail across the Atlantic Ocean, stretch of 2,800 miles, in a raft made from plastic gas pipes. ccording to The Telegraph, the four Englishmen with a combined age of 259, will board the "An-tiki".

Smith will be joined by Don Russell, 61, David Hildred, 57, and Andrew Bainbridge, 57, for a ten-week voyage from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas.

The raft is expected to begin the epic journey this week. All the materials have been either donated or purchased by Smith, who is spending compensation he received after he was run over by a van two years ago - an accident that has left the adventurer, writer and grandfather with metal pins in his leg.

"I had some luck two years ago - I was run over. That's what inspired the whole thing and that's provided the basis for the money," Smith was quoted, as saying.

He added: "The whole point it to prove that elderly people can do something interesting. Well, I am 84 and disabled, so I'm well qualified on that score."

A former science correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, Smith has written over 30 books and worked on several film and documentary projects.

He also presented Tomorrow's World when the BBC television show, launched in 1965, was in its infancy. (ANI)