A man was charged on Tuesday after he was caught in an attempted transatlantic voyage from Florida to London last month – in a giant hamster wheel.
Reza Baluchi, a Florida resident, told officers about his plans to travel more than 4,000 miles from Florida to London in a homemade vessel, which the Coast Guard described as unsafe. Baluchi has been attempting similar voyages three times in 2014, 2016 and 2021, where he was caught during all attempts.
He was charged in federal court with obstruction of boarding and violation of the captain of the Port Order.
Baluchi was first spotted on August 26 off the coast of Georgia. Officers asked for Baluchi’s registration documents, but he did not have them. Baluchi then threatened to kill himself with a knife if the Coast Guard were to interfere. It took two days to convince Baluchi to get off the vessel.
This was Baluchi’s fourth attempt in a decade of traveling the ocean in his homemade hamster wheel. The Coast Guard intervened all four times. Baluchi has spent thousands of dollars on his vessel, which he has equipped with a satellite phone, a solar array and a water filtration system. But he later abandoned his adventure when he found out he was missing his backup GPS and charging cables.
Court documents have noted that Baluchi “may not go to the ocean or board a vessel onto the ocean.”
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Originally a cyclist from Iran, Baluchi was granted political asylum in 2002 after arriving in the United States from Mexico. Before his attempted expeditions in the hamster wheel, Baluchi, an ultra-marathon runner, ran and cycled around 55 countries, including the United States, in the name of various causes.
