He theorized that a human being could very well survive the trip across the ocean without provisions and decided to test his theory himself in order to save thousands of lives of people lost at sea.

On 19 October 1952 Bombard began his solitary trip across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies, after visiting his newborn daughter in France.

Bombard sailed in a Zodiac inflatable boat called l'Hérétique ("the heretic"), which was only 4.5 metres (15 ft) long, taking only a sextant and almost no provisions.

On the contrary, he indicated that seawater in small quantities can prolong survival if accompanied, if rainwater is not available, by the absorption of liquids present in the bodies of fish.

In 1958, Bombard and six men were testing a rubber dinghy in rough waters off of the coast of the French town of Étel when a wave capsized the craft.

Bombard was featured in an episode of the educational television program 3-2-1 Contact in 1986, in which he coaches two of the teenaged cast members on his life-raft survival techniques using a real raft on the open sea.