truckonaut

English

Etymology

truck +‎ -naut, a calque of Spanish camionauta.

Noun

truckonaut (plural truckonauts)

1. One of the Cubans who adapted a truck to act as a boat and used it to sail to the USA.
   • 2003 October 31, “Anderson Cooper 360”, in Anderson Cooper:

     Remember the truckonaut Cuban, the guy who rigged a ‘52 Chevy truck on to a boat and set sail for the Florida coast? Well, he was captured and sent back, but told to go through properly channels. He did. He’s expected to receive a U.S. visa on Monday.

   • 2004 February 5, Tere Figueras, Luisa Yanez, “Cubans’ Buick pulled over at sea”, in The Miami Herald:

     Eleven Cubans in a vintage Buick — three of them the original “truckonauts” who tried a similar intrepid journey last year aboard a battered Chevy pickup — were intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard early Wednesday and now face a return trip to the communist island.

   • 2004 February 16, Tracey Eaton, “Latest effort to flee drives Cuban migration debate”, in The Dallas Morning News:

     A similar contraption was unveiled in July when some of Diaz’s neighbors attached 55-gallon barrels to a 1951 Chevrolet truck, hooked the drive shaft to a propeller and made their way north. The Coast Guard caught them as they approached South Florida. Some Cuban exiles pressured the U.S. government to let the “truckonauts,” as they called them, enter the country.

   • 2006, Car and Driver - Volume 52, page 130:

     Maroone Chevrolet's general manager, Raul de la Milera, a Cuban Emigre himself, has been working with Grass and other mechanics at the dealership to convert a 1953 Chevrolet truck they located into a near duplicate of the original truckonaut machine.