2011 is a prime number.So this year will be a prime year.
What to wish, then ?
A sea of love and love of the sea.
What to wish, then ?
A sea of love and love of the sea.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Barcelona WR : second edition for the two-handed world race
Imagine two skippers on a boat (IMOCA Open 60), fighting alongside other skippers as they compete in a crazy race of… 46,300 km !
A true round the world, non-stop sailing tour, with the start and finish line in the same place – Barcelona !
Presentation
The Barcelona World Race 2010 is the second edition of an excitingly mad race that takes place every four years.
The first was held in 2007/08, the third will (logically) take place in 2014.
To know more about the previous edition, click here.
Absolutely unique the Barcelona World Race is the only round the world yacht race that is double-handed (two co-skippers per boat) in which no external assistance is permitted or there is a penalty.
Read : solo and two-handed, two similar but not equal ways to sail
The race is organized by the Fundació Navegació Oceànica in Barcelona, and starts on 31st December 2010 at 13 h just in front of the Hotel W in the port of Barcelona.
The arrival is estimated for the end of March 2011!
The route
The departure and arrival will be in Barcelona with three different points of passage at the three Capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin, Horn) and the Cook Strait.
The approximate length of the course is 25,000 nautical miles or for non-sailing minds, 46,300 km !
The teams
Once again this year the best skippers in the world will line up at the start for the Barcelona World Race.
There are 15 teams registered, 6 more than in 2007 that proves just how successful the race has become :
- Central Lechera Asturiana with Juan Merediz and Fran Palacio (Spain)
- Estrella Damm Saling Team with Alex Pella and Pepe Ribes, the 2 Barcelona residents in the competition
- Mapfre with Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez (Spain)
- Foncia, the 100% French team with François Gabart and the Star Michel Desjoyeaux
- Forum Maritim Catala with Gerard Marin and Ludovic Aglaor (Spain)
- Fruit with Krzysztof Owczarek (Poland) and Armand Coursodon (France)
- Gaes Centros Auditivos, the only female team in the competition with Barcelona local Anna Corbella and English woman Dee Caffari
- Groupe Bel, another French team with Kito de Pavant and Sébastien Audigane
- Hugo Boss with Alex Thomson (UK) and Andy Meiklejohn (New-Zealand)
- Mirabaud the only couple taking part in the competition, Dominique Wavre (Switzerland) and his real life partner Michèle Paret (France)
- Neutrogena Formula Noruega with Boris Herrmann (Germany) and Ryan Breymaier (USA)
- Président with Frenchman Jean le Cam and Barcelona’s Bruno Garcia
- Renault, 100% Spanish team with Antonio Piris and Pachi Rivero, the only Spaniard who will be taking the start line for the second time in the Barcelona World Race
- Virbac-Paprec 3 a very well-known French duo of Jean-Pierre Dick and the famous Loïck Peyron
- We Are Water with the surprising Barcelona duo Jaume Mumbru and Cali Sanmarti
Links :
A true round the world, non-stop sailing tour, with the start and finish line in the same place – Barcelona !
Presentation
The Barcelona World Race 2010 is the second edition of an excitingly mad race that takes place every four years.
The first was held in 2007/08, the third will (logically) take place in 2014.
To know more about the previous edition, click here.
Absolutely unique the Barcelona World Race is the only round the world yacht race that is double-handed (two co-skippers per boat) in which no external assistance is permitted or there is a penalty.
Read : solo and two-handed, two similar but not equal ways to sail
The race is organized by the Fundació Navegació Oceànica in Barcelona, and starts on 31st December 2010 at 13 h just in front of the Hotel W in the port of Barcelona.
The arrival is estimated for the end of March 2011!
The route
The departure and arrival will be in Barcelona with three different points of passage at the three Capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin, Horn) and the Cook Strait.
The approximate length of the course is 25,000 nautical miles or for non-sailing minds, 46,300 km !
The teams
Once again this year the best skippers in the world will line up at the start for the Barcelona World Race.
There are 15 teams registered, 6 more than in 2007 that proves just how successful the race has become :
- Central Lechera Asturiana with Juan Merediz and Fran Palacio (Spain)
- Estrella Damm Saling Team with Alex Pella and Pepe Ribes, the 2 Barcelona residents in the competition
- Mapfre with Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez (Spain)
- Foncia, the 100% French team with François Gabart and the Star Michel Desjoyeaux
- Forum Maritim Catala with Gerard Marin and Ludovic Aglaor (Spain)
- Fruit with Krzysztof Owczarek (Poland) and Armand Coursodon (France)
- Gaes Centros Auditivos, the only female team in the competition with Barcelona local Anna Corbella and English woman Dee Caffari
- Groupe Bel, another French team with Kito de Pavant and Sébastien Audigane
- Hugo Boss with Alex Thomson (UK) and Andy Meiklejohn (New-Zealand)
- Mirabaud the only couple taking part in the competition, Dominique Wavre (Switzerland) and his real life partner Michèle Paret (France)
- Neutrogena Formula Noruega with Boris Herrmann (Germany) and Ryan Breymaier (USA)
- Président with Frenchman Jean le Cam and Barcelona’s Bruno Garcia
- Renault, 100% Spanish team with Antonio Piris and Pachi Rivero, the only Spaniard who will be taking the start line for the second time in the Barcelona World Race
- Virbac-Paprec 3 a very well-known French duo of Jean-Pierre Dick and the famous Loïck Peyron
- We Are Water with the surprising Barcelona duo Jaume Mumbru and Cali Sanmarti
Links :
- BWR 2010 : First International Congress of Ocean Sailing and the Environment
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
A female explorer discovered on the high seas
The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas,and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe, By Glynis Ridley
From NPR
Jeanne Baret didn't set out to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.
When she stepped onboard the Etoile in 1766, she was looking for plants.
Her lover, Philibert Commerson, was a well-known botanist at the time and had been selected to be part of French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville's round-the-world expedition from 1766-69.
Glynis Ridley, author of The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe, says Baret would have been the obvious choice to serve as Commerson's assistant on the Etoile's journey, except for one thing.
"A French Royal ordinance forbade women being on French Navy ships," Ridley tells Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz. A little theater was necessary.
"The couple formulated a plan for Baret to disguise herself as a young man [and] offer herself as his assistant on the dockside."
A Brutal Discovery
After Commerson "accepted" Baret into his service, the couple was able to keep their secret from the crew of over 100 men for some time.
Baret's real identity was cruelly revealed, however.
The commander of the expedition claims it happened when the Etoile landed on the island of Tahiti.
"Bougainville said that a group of Tahitian men surrounded Baret and immediately identified her as a woman," Ridley says.
"Because she was worried about what might happen, she supposedly revealed her true identity so that her countrymen, the French, could save her from what she took to be an imminent sexual assault."
But after poring over the diaries of crew members, Ridley doesn't believe Bougainville's tale.
"That story is peculiar to Bougainville's journal," Ridley says.
"In fact, three other members of the crew contradict this story and say that Baret was, in fact, brutally exposed."
According to the other journals, Baret was discovered and gang-raped by her crewmates in Papua New Guinea.
The Plant That Carried Her Name
Baret very likely discovered many plants on the expedition, Ridley says, most notably the bougainvillea plant, named for the Etoile's commander.
The plant named after Baret, however, has since shed her name.
Commerson identified the plant while botanizing with Baret in Madagascar and named the genus Baretia.
"The thing about Baretia is that an individual plant may contain a contradictory set of leaves," Ridley says. "Some are oblong, some are rather more square, and some are fairly irregular."
"[Commerson] thought that this was a nice summation of Baret herself, since she united a lot of opposites," Ridley says. In addition to being a woman wearing man's clothes, "she was a working-class woman who traveled ... further than any aristocrat."
If you look up the genus Baretia today, however, you won't find much.
The genus has been reclassified under the name Turraea.
Ridley hopes her book might bring Baret's name back from the past.
"It would be wonderful if, as a result of the book, somebody wants to name something after Baret again," she says. "I think that would be a nice tribute."
The commander of the expedition claims it happened when the Etoile landed on the island of Tahiti.
"Bougainville said that a group of Tahitian men surrounded Baret and immediately identified her as a woman," Ridley says.
"Because she was worried about what might happen, she supposedly revealed her true identity so that her countrymen, the French, could save her from what she took to be an imminent sexual assault."
But after poring over the diaries of crew members, Ridley doesn't believe Bougainville's tale.
"That story is peculiar to Bougainville's journal," Ridley says.
"In fact, three other members of the crew contradict this story and say that Baret was, in fact, brutally exposed."
According to the other journals, Baret was discovered and gang-raped by her crewmates in Papua New Guinea.
The Plant That Carried Her Name
Baret very likely discovered many plants on the expedition, Ridley says, most notably the bougainvillea plant, named for the Etoile's commander.
The plant named after Baret, however, has since shed her name.
Commerson identified the plant while botanizing with Baret in Madagascar and named the genus Baretia.
"The thing about Baretia is that an individual plant may contain a contradictory set of leaves," Ridley says. "Some are oblong, some are rather more square, and some are fairly irregular."
"[Commerson] thought that this was a nice summation of Baret herself, since she united a lot of opposites," Ridley says. In addition to being a woman wearing man's clothes, "she was a working-class woman who traveled ... further than any aristocrat."
If you look up the genus Baretia today, however, you won't find much.
The genus has been reclassified under the name Turraea.
Ridley hopes her book might bring Baret's name back from the past.
"It would be wonderful if, as a result of the book, somebody wants to name something after Baret again," she says. "I think that would be a nice tribute."
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Images of the week : satellite prints
195 Cargo Ships, Barges, Motorboats, Yachts, Tankers, Cruise Ships, Riverboats, Sailboats and Hospital ShipsA couple of them are from San Francisco. Find them.
81 Square Miles of the Great Salt Lake(each square represents exactly one square mile of the lake)
From Jenny Odell website
The Satellite Collection is a series of six digital prints that Jenny Odell made by collaging cut-out imagery from Google Satellite. Each one is printed and framed at 24"x24".
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