Michel Desjoyeaux’s new challenge

Get on board !

As soon as the boat was launched, Michel Desjoyeaux and Dassault Systèmes found a way

to invite the largest audience possible to visit their boat in 3D.

From Dassault Systems

Michel Desjoyeaux, France's most successful solo yachtsman, is impassioned not only by sailing and competition but also by technology and innovation.

At the beginning of 2010, Michel Desjoyeaux set a new challenge for himself: construct a new 60 ft monohull in order to vie for victory in the Route du Rhum (a transatlantic solo yacht race that begins next Sunday, October 31, 2010) and the Barcelona World Race (two-handed, non-stop, round the world race starting December 31, 2010).
Although it normally takes 10 months to design this type of boat, Michel Desjoyeaux has less than 6 months to construct his new monohull and develop the technical innovations that will permit him to distance himself from his competitors.
In other words, a never-before-seen in such a short time!

Trained by Dassault Systèmes engineers, the team at Michel Desjoyeaux's engineering and design studio, Mer Forte, was able to conceive and realize numerous innovations during the design phases and the construction of the sailboat.
This particularly allowed them to fine tune and perfect the kinematics of the keel/jack assembly.
The CATIA software feature that calculates the finished elements of complex composite parts made the quick optimization and validation of major parts such as the rudder housings, the tiller system and even the boom (saving a significant amount of weight) much easier.

His love for sailing is matched by his desire to conceive and develop the boats that he sails.

Sharing this passion with the general public is a part of the challenge he has set for himself.
Click here for a 3D tour of the boat in real time

Links :

Quite real the background animated image of the Rivages2012 website
(shipyard building the new IMOCA 60' for Bernard Stamm)

'Old charts may have grounded sub'

HMS Astute, the nuclear submarine
that ran aground in shallow waters off the Isle of Skye, has been towed free

From TheGuardian

A nuclear-powered submarine may have run aground on a shingle bank because the charts it was using were out of date, sources have said.

HMS Astute was on sea trials when the rudder of the vessel is thought to have become stuck on the bank on the west coast of Scotland at around 8am on Friday.

The Royal Navy has launched a service inquiry into why the 100m-long submarine ran aground in the channel between Skye and Kyle of Lochalsh.

Location on the Marine GeoGarage

One of the possibilities being explored is that out of date charts had not accurately mapped the shifting sea channels off the Isle of Skye.

The vessel is understood to have strayed several hundred yards outside the safe sea lane marked on Admiralty charts.

A Royal Navy source told the Mail on Sunday: "One of the things that is being looked at is if the charts were up to date with the recent seabed changes in the area. The seabed can change quickly."

The Ministry of Defence said the investigation into the incident would be "full and thorough".

The investigation will also consider if any crew were negligent and the submarine's skipper, Commander Andy Coles, could find himself in front of a court martial.
But a Ministry of Defence spokesman said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on the possibility of disciplinary action until the investigation is complete.

It is believed a crew transfer from the shore to the submarine was being carried out when the incident happened between the Isle of Skye and the mainland.
There were no reports of any injuries and the Ministry of Defence said it was not a "nuclear incident".

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TheHeraldScotland :
Dozens of people gathering on a nearby beach could clearly see that the Astute was sitting well outside normal shipping channels, and tilting slightly. Ross McKerlach, operational manager at Kyle of Lochalsh lifeboat station, said the submarine was a full six miles from where it would normally lie overnight, and had run aground in water too shallow even for his own small motor boat.
“Where he was is in between two rocks and on a sandbank,” he said.

The DailyExpress :
Independent nuclear expert John Large said the accident could lead to costly repairs, and was most likely caused by a “navigational error”.
Ross Mckerlich, 56, the operations manager of the local Kyle Lifeboat, said he was “amazed” that the submarine tried to do a crew transfer so close to shore. He said: “These subs normally lie six miles off Kyle. Last night I saw this one four miles off and now he’s less than half mile. Someone’s made an error.”

TheScotsman :
Mike Critchley, a former naval officer and the editor of Warship World magazine, said the accident was likely to have been caused by a navigation error or technical failure of the steering gear.
"She was a long way out of where she should have been to do this transfer. It was 800 yards away from where it should have been and grounded in shale and silt and not jagged rocks.

Other links :

• DailyRecord : HMS Astute heads back to base for checks as commander faces possible court martial over missed warning signs
• DailyMail : Royal Navy chiefs left red-faced after brand new £1.2bn nuclear submarine is left high and dry off the coast of Scotland
  
• TheGuardian : Royal Navy attempts to free grounded nuclear submarine
  
• TheTelegraph : HMS Astute, world's most advanced nuclear submarine runs aground
  
• BBC : Nuclear submarine HMS Astute runs aground off Skye
• BBC : Grounded nuclear sub HMS Astute moored for tests
  
• YouTube : video taken by Paul Yoxon of the International Otter Survival Fund, based in Broadford on the island

Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 exhibition

Photograph: Andrew Parkinson

Photograph : Jordi Chias Pujol

The world’s most prestigious wildlife photography competition, Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year, has revealed the commended images from this year’s competition.

We have selected the 2010 marine images here :

• Underwater world : 2010 (archives : 2009 / 2008 / 2007 / 2006 / 2005 )
  
• Storm rider
• Desecration in paradise
• Tears of blood
  
• Pickings from puffins
• Catch of the day
• March of the crabs
• Predatory steps
  
• Giant beachcomber
• Cold comfort
• Southern swell
• Celestial cathedral
• Back in, front out
  

They are among the selection that will join more than 100 other prize-winning photographs, including the overall winning images, when the exhibition debuts at the Natural History Museum, London on 22 October 2010.

It will then tour nationally and internationally after its launch in the English capital.
More than one million visitors are expected to have seen the exhibition once the tour is complete.

Sea ice melting as Arctic temperature rises

Tracking recent environmental changes, with 17 essays on different aspects
of the environment, by a team of 69 international authors,
based on 176 scientific references, and supported by the international Arctic Council

From APNews

The temperature is rising again in the Arctic, with the sea ice extent dropping to one of the lowest levels on record, climate scientists reported Thursday.

The new Arctic Report Card "tells a story of widespread, continued and even dramatic effects of a warming Arctic," said Jackie Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility in Hanover, N.H.

"This isn't just a climatological effect. It impacts the people that live there," she added.

Atmospheric scientists concerned about global warming focus on the Arctic because that is a region where the effects are expected to be felt first, and that has been the case in recent years.
There was a slowdown in Arctic warming in 2009, but in the first half of 2010 warming has been near a record pace, with monthly readings over 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit) above normal in northern Canada, according to the report card released Thursday.

Highlighting the immediate consequences of the warming, researchers said last winter's massive snowstorms that struck the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states were tied to higher Arctic temperatures.

"Normally the cold air is bottled up in the Arctic," said Jim Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.
But last December and February, winds that normally blow west to east across the Arctic were instead bringing the colder air south to the Mid-Atlantic, he said.
"As we lose more sea ice it's a paradox that warming in the atmosphere can create more of these winter storms," Overland said at a news briefing.

There is a powerful connection between ice cover and air temperatures, Richter-Menge explained. When temperatures warm, ice melts.
When reflective ice melts it reveals darker surfaces underneath, which absorbs more heat.
That, in turn, causes more melting "and on the cycle goes," she said.

In September the Arctic sea ice extent was the third smallest in the last 30 years, added Don Perovich of the Army laboratory.
He said the three smallest ice covers have occurred in the last four years.

Other findings included:

• Winter snow accumulation on land in the Arctic was the lowest since records began in 1966.
• Glaciers and ice caps in Arctic Canada are continuing to lose mass at a rate that has been increasing since 1987, reflecting a trend toward warmer summer air temperatures and longer melt seasons.
• The temperature in the permafrost is rising in Alaska, northwest Canada, Siberia and Northern Europe.
• Greenland in 2010 is marked by record-setting high air temperatures, ice loss through melting, and marine-terminating glacier area loss. The largest recorded glacier area loss observed in Greenland occurred this summer at Petermann Glacier, where a piece of ice several times larger than Manhattan Island broke away.

The report card, prepared by 69 researchers in eight countries, is issued annually by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In addition to Richter-Menge, Overland and Perovich, lead researchers included Mary-Louise Timmermans at Yale University; Jason Box, Ohio State University; Mike Gill, Environment Canada; Martin Sharp, University of Alberta, Canada; Chris Derksen, Environment; and D.A. Walker, Vladimir Romanovsky and Uma Bhatt, University of Alaska-Fairbanks.

Jellyfish swarms: menacing or misunderstood?

New Scientist : unusually high concentrations of mauve stinger jelllyfish have been discovered near the Balearic Islands in Spain and in other parts of the Mediterranean (July 2007)

From LiveScience

They sting, even kill, swimmers. They block the cooling systems of power plants. They clog fishing nets and kill penned salmon.

In recent years, reports of havoc caused by swarms of jellyfish have inspired speculation that these simple, otherworldly creatures are capitalizing on changes we have brought to ocean ecosystems.

Scientists are finding we could be jellyfish's potential benefactors. Overfishing relieves them of competition and predators. Nutrient-rich pollution can cause phytoplankton blooms, providing feasts for some jellies and reducing the water's oxygen content, which could favor their high tolerance for low oxygen. The warmth of climate change could foster expansion among some species. We transport invasive species to new environments, where they thrive. And coastal development provides new shelter for the jellies' stationary life stage, called a polyp.

An article called "The Jellyfish Joyride" published in 2009 in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, discusses the theory that, without a change on our part, these pressures could push ecosystems topped by fish and marine mammals to devolve into ones dominated by jellyfish, as they may have been 500 million years ago.

It is exactly the type of summary Steven Haddock dislikes.

Too easily villainized?

As Haddock, who studies gelatinous plankton at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California, sees it, reports on jellies' potential to overrun the seas resemble monster movies, inaccurately portraying and unfairly demonizing these creatures.

"So you end up with this kind of imaginary animal that has all these properties, which actually no one jellyfish has," Haddock said. "Basically, jellyfish need to eat, and jellyfish are eaten by things as well, so they are part of a healthy ecosystem."

The term "jellyfish" is a slippery one. In general use, it encompasses two groups: Cnidaria, a diverse group of animals armed with stinging cells, which include corals and true jellies — typically, the gelatinous creatures beachgoers encounter. The others are the Ctenophores or comb jellies, which use rows of tiny hairs, called cilia, to swim — and they don't sting. Fossil evidence of both dates back to the Cambrian Period, which lasted from 543 million to 490 million years ago.

Blooms occur when polyps, the early life stage, of some Cnidaria jellies bud off to form the free-floating, umbrella-shaped medusae, which we think of as jellyfish. The polyps bud simultaneously, and one can produce many medusae, creating – depending on one's perspective – blooms or swarms of jellies. Comb jellies, hermaphrodites that release eggs and sperm simultaneously, can also create blooms when they reproduce.

In Japan, conflicts with jellyfish have climbed in recent years, as populations of moon jellies and the giant Nomura's jellyfish, which grow up to 6.7 feet (2 meters) in diameter, have clogged fishing nets and power-plant intakes.

While there is no doubt that these jellies are showing up more frequently in Japanese waters, it's not clear whether the blooms are more intense than years prior, because scientists cannot determine the population sizes, according to Shin-ichi Uye, a professor at the Graduate School of Biosphere Science at Hiroshima University.

Based on the seeming increase in blooms around Japan and elsewhere in the East Asian seas, Uye suspects the increases are global in scale and attributable to human activities like overfishing, coastal construction and nutrient pollution, as well as warming waters.

"However, I admit that the data are not sufficient enough" to conclude that the phenomenon is global, he told LiveScience in an e-mail. "In fact, I paid no attention to jellyfish until they became increasingly problematic in fisheries in [the] 1990s."

No solid baseline

Scientific studies of jellyfish increased toward the end of the last century, but they were significantly outpaced by jellyfish stories in the popular press, indicating the hype may be media-driven, said Rob Condon, one of the lead investigators for the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis jellyfish working group. The group is examining the hypothesis that increases in jellyfish blooms are occurring worldwide.

A conclusion would be premature, according to Condon.

"The big thing here is an 'if,' and the jury is still out on this," he said. "I say, 'Show me the numbers.' Undoubtedly there are localized areas where blooms have increased. ... On a global scale, we don't know enough about jellyfish populations, their biology, their distribution, to make a judgment."

His group is trying to get to the bottom of this, looking at the limited data available both from government and scientific reports, and building a database that will outlive the two-year project. Public outreach is also part of the mission; anyone can submit a sighting on a website (jellywatch.org), and the group is holding an outreach event in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Nov. 20.

Because long-term data on jellyfish populations are limited, Lucas Brotz, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, also has been looking at anecdotal information — reports in newspapers or from those who work at sea. He said he is seeing evidence of population increases but is not yet prepared to say if they are significant.

"One of the problems with identifying changes in jellyfish populations is they fluctuate with so much variability. One year you see a million, and the next year there won't be any," Brotz said.

No simple answers

Although researchers have attempted to correlate environmental changes with jellyfish populations, it's often difficult to draw a straight line between them.

There is evidence that some species of jellyfish increase or expand as waters warm. However , a complex scenario played out 10 years ago in the Bering Sea, near Alaska, contradicts that.

Trawl data collected by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center revealed that numbers of jellyfish, primarily the sea nettle, grew rapidly throughout the 1990s in the Bering Sea, while temperatures were moderate. The catches peaked in the summer of 2000, at about 40 times larger than in 1982, and the jellyfish also expanded their range. Then they began to decline, while the sea warmed markedly.

The decline may have occurred when the jellyfish food supply — fish and tiny floating animals called zooplankton — could no longer support their growing appetites, according to a 2008 study in the journal Progress in Oceanography. When conditions for zooplankton blooms were optimal, the jellyfish populations grew.

A similarly complex relationship between jellyfish and certain fish — which eat each other's young — may give the jellyfish an advantage in overfished waters. This phenomenon may have suppressed the recovery of Namibia's sardine and anchovy fisheries after they collapsed, according to Mark Gibbons, a plankton biologist at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

There is also a large unknown factoring into the population changes seen in the Bering Sea, since scientists have little information about where jellyfish polyps bud off to form the familiar medusa and about the conditions needed for the life-stage change.

"Our understanding of the basic polyp life history is almost negligible," Gibbons said. It is known that polyps can stay attached for very long periods of time, and if the environment becomes hostile they can effectively shut down and then "come back to life." They can also bud off more polyps under certain conditions. However, the factors influencing their behavior are poorly understood in most species, he wrote in an e-mail to LiveScience.

Unfairly villainized?

Jellyfish blooms are nothing new; these sudden proliferations of medusa are recorded in the fossil record more than 500 million years ago. "So it is hard to know if that is any different than it was a long time ago," according to Haddock.

Haddock, also a member of the NCEAS working group, said he came across a 1925 study of jellyfish reproduction, which the author speculated would help explain the masses of jellyfish that had washed up onto the beach in Monterey Bay. "Even for him in 1925, it went without saying, yeah, we get these big jellyfish blooms all the time."

Links :

• The jellyfish joyride : causes, consequences and management responses to a more gelatinous future
• Ecojel : Understanding jellyfish in the Irish Sea