Heinz searching for lost sailor who survived on ketchup

WASHINGTON – Food brand Heinz is looking for the sailor who spent weeks lost at sea in January, surviving largely on ketchup – and it is asking the Internet for help, according to a report on the Straits Times yesterday.

When “ketchup boat guy” turns up, he will be handed the keys to a brand-new boat, said the ketchup manufacturer.

But first, it has to find 47-year-old Elvis Francois, a sailor from the Caribbean island of Dominica, who survived 24 days lost at sea in a sailboat by eating ketchup before being rescued in Colombian waters.

In a video released by the Colombian Navy after his rescue in January, Francois said: “I had no food. There was only a bottle of ketchup that was on the boat, garlic powder and Maggi (bouillon cubes). So I mixed it up with some water for me to survive 24 days at sea.”

“Without knowing for sure that it was Heinz ketchup that helped keep Francois alive, Heinz posted a call on its Instagram page on Feb. 14 – or ‘(set the) message adrift into the sea of the Internet’ – in the hope of tracking down the sailor,” Straits Times reported.

The company said it has already contacted the government of Dominica and the Colombian Navy, which rescued him northwest of Colombia’s Puerto Bolivar.

But so far, the “message in a ketchup bottle” has failed to find Francois, who had been repairing a sailboat off a harbor in the Caribbean island of St. Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles last December when the weather turned foul, and he was swept out to sea.

“Without having any knowledge of navigation, he was lost and disoriented at sea. His efforts to maneuver the vessel and the equipment on board were to no avail,” the Straits Times said, citing a statement from the Colombian Navy.

According to The Washington Post, Heinz plans to offer him “a new boat equipped with full navigational technology to avoid another disaster in the future.”

The company added that it is now widening the search internationally, and plans on enlisting other Heinz markets around the world to help track him down.