Heinz has sent out a digital message in a bottle to find a sailor who was lost at sea… and is likely sick of ketchup. Photo: Instagram//Heinz
Back in December, a 47-year-old man named Elvis Francois from Dominica was working on his boat in St. Maarten. That repair job, in a matter of a few short hours, would turn into nearly a month lost at sea, surviving only on ketchup, garlic powder, and a few soup packets. Now, Heinz is looking for the guy because they want to give him a brand new boat. But the company has no idea where he is, so they’re turning to the internet public for help.
“To whoever finds this message, we need your help tracking down an amazing man with an amazing story,” the ketchup maker wrote in an Instagram message in a bottle. “You may remember Elvis Francois as the brave sailor who survived on nothing but ketchup and spices while adrift at sea for 24 days. Well, Heinz wants to celebrate his safe return home and help him buy a new boat…but we can’t seem to find him.”
Francois had been working on his sail near Saint Maarten in the Antilles islands when the weather suddenly changed. He began drifting far off course, and before he knew it, he was hopelessly lost.
“I tried to [go] back to port, but I lost track because it took me a while to mount the sail and fix the sail,” he said. “…I called my friends, my coworkers. They tried to contact me, but they lost service. There was nothing else I could do than sit down and wait.”
The lost sailor scrawled the word “help” in large letters on the back of his boat and settled in to wait for rescue. Twenty-four days later, the Columbian Navy plucked him from the sea. In a video the Navy released later, Francois said that he had lost his navigational abilities. When the Navy finally found him, Francois was about 120 nautical miles away from Puerto Bolívar in the Caribbean Sea. Amazingly, when Francois was taken to the hospital in the Port of Cartagena, doctors found him to be in good health, but likely with a slight aversion to ketchup.
Elvis Francois was in good health after 24 days lost at sea, surviving mostly on Heinz ketchup. Photo: Columbian Navy//Twitter
When Heinz heard the story, they decided it would be both a nice thing to do and a clever marketing campaign if they were to find Francois and give him a new boat — one “equipped with full navigational technology to avoid another disaster in the future.”
They tried to track him down, first by reaching out to the government of Dominica to find him, but their efforts didn’t amount to much. The brand then asked the Columbian Navy, but no one there knew where he’d gone either. So on February 14, Heinz took to social media, hoping the internet could help.
“We’re setting this message adrift into the sea of the internet, because if anyone can help us find him, it’s you,” the company said. “If you or anyone you know can help us get in contact with Elvis Francois, please drop us a DM.”
As of this writing, however, there’s still no word on where Francois could be… but Heinz isn’t giving up. “We’re hoping to spread the word far and wide so Heinz can finally gift the new boat to Elvis,” the company said.
