Benoît Lecomte (born 1967) is a French-born long-distance swimmer (now a naturalized American citizen) who claimed to be the first man to swim across the Atlantic Ocean without a kick board in 1998.
== Atlantic Ocean swim ==
From 16 July to 25 September 1998, Lecomte undertook a swim in stages from Hyannis, Massachusetts to Quiberon, Brittany, France, including a one-week stop in the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago.During his 73-day, 3,716-mile (5,980 km; 3,229 nmi) journey, Lecomte was accompanied by a 40-foot (12 m) sailboat that had an electromagnetic field for 25 ft (7.6 m) to ward off sharks...