But last weekend that's exactly what Georges Larnicol did in the port of Concarneau, a town in the Finistère department in Brittany in north-western France.
Screenshot from Ouest-France video. Georges Larnicol and first mate Joël aboard the chocolate boat.Not only did Larnicol manage successfully to launch his 3.5 metre chocolate delight, he also managed to clamber aboard and stay afloat for one and a half hours.
As you can see from the accompanying video (courtesy of the regional newspaper Ouest France) it wasn't all plain sailing for Larnicol and his first mate, Joël.
They needed the help of Larnicol's colleagues from the diving club at which he has been a member for the past 11 years to keep the boat afloat and prevent it from tipping over.
Concarneau: le bateau en chocolat - Ouest France
Concarneau: le bateau en chocolat
Concarneau: le bateau en chocolat
Video de ouestfrance
And there was a good deal of bailing out of water as the two men headed further out of port.
After one and a half hours though Larnicol once again made dry land to the applause of the one thousand odd spectators who had been present to witness his exploit.
It wasn't the 55-year-old's first attempt to set sail in a chocolate boat.
In August his plans were scuppered when his Chocolate boat Mark I broke into pieces.
But Mark II, which took more than 400 hours to construct, met with more success and pleased with the outcome, Larnicol is promising to build a bigger 12-metre boat complete with chocolate mask for 2012.
For killjoys who might be critical of the apparent waste (of chocolate) involved, Larnicol, not surprisingly perhaps a chocolatier by profession, points out that only "recycled decorative chocolate" was used in the construction of his boat.
In other words, chocolate that was past its sell-by date and could not be eaten.
As the BBC says in its piece on Larnicol's watery exploits, Chocs ahoy!
Posts
4 comments:
this is very good for you, ybg :)
I live in the netherlands, and every year, we have a competition to make boats out of Edam cheese. They are small boats, not large enough to actually sail on, but it is great fun to play with the cheese boats over the canal, and then to eat the boats afterwards.
Martens
What a waste of chocolate.
Wow. What sort of substance you've added to it to make it durable?
Post a Comment