## The Record and What It Means
The Guinness World Records entry for the longest time adrift at sea alone confirms Poon Lim’s 133-day record, associated with the Benlomond sinking and rescue dates. It is important to be precise about what this record category means and what it does not mean.
The record is for the longest time adrift alone on a life raft — specifically a survival raft, not a larger vessel. It is not a record for the longest anyone has ever been at sea. Other survival stories have involved longer periods at sea aboard vessels that, while damaged or undersupplied, were ships or boats with greater capacity than a Carley float. José Salvador Alvarenga’s documented survival of approximately 438 to 439 days in the Pacific, from late 2012 to early 2014, was on a small fishing boat rather than a survival raft, and involved a period with a second survivor before Alvarenga was alone. Three Mexican sailors survived approximately ten months at sea in a similar small-boat scenario. These are remarkable survivals, but they belong to different record categories.
Within the specific category of survival alone on a life raft, Poon Lim’s 133 days remained, as of the research conducted for this article, unbroken. His record preceded him into every account written about him: it is the fact that anchors the story, the number that makes the premise seem impossible before the details demonstrate how it was achieved.
When he was told of the record in 1943 — at the ceremony in New York where the British Empire Medal was announced — he is reported to have said: “I hope no one will ever have to break that record.”