Nautical charts for Spain until today which leads to the availability of a new dedicated layer for Spain with IHM ENCs : Spanish raster charts in the GeoGarage platform included with the British Isles & misc. (UKHO) layer note : with the arrival today of a dedicated and exhaustive layer for Spain, these Admiralty raster charts for Spain will be withdrawn in the next Q3-2019 release of the layer based on UKHO raster material
Until today, the GeoGarage platform used the raster chart material (RNC) provided by UKHO to display nautical charts for the Spanish areas.
Unfortunately, UKHO only integrates about one third (around 100 RNCs) of the original digital nautical maps from IHM (Instituto Hidrografico de la Marina de España) whole catalogue of paper maps (329 in total).
For internal management reasons specific to IHM, the Spanish Hydrographic Office can't deliver to their commercial licensees (whose GeoGarage) their own digital raster material (RNC) -with a recurrent periodicity for updates- corresponding to the Spanish nautical paper maps.
The GeoGarage platform was already in the capacity to deliver a rasterized visualization of Electronic Navigation Chart (vector ENC) through their web services (WMS/WMTS) for their customers involved in webmapping and other onshore GIS activities.
Today, the GeoGarage platform is ready to propose the visualization of ENC to their customers using mobile navigation apps (non SOLAS)
new ENC_ES layer : Spanish (IHM) ENC coverage in the GeoGarage platform (296 cells)
view of Ibiza harbor (rasterized ENC overlaid on Google Maps imagery)
So Weather4D R&N users (with updated version 12/06/2019) can right now display the whole catalogue of IHM ENC (296 ENC at this time), with a quarterly updating process : see GeoGarage news
Today, in this first version, the vector ENC are displayed using a graphical rendering similar to the one used in official ECDIS (s-52 IHO specifications) : they are not to be used for shipping navigation (IMO SOLAS), but only for recreative use, not as a primary tool for navigation.
Effectively, in contrast to the use in ECDIS, there is no possibility -today with the W4D current version- to ask for text info and details regarding any navigational objects (beacon, buoy, marks...).
1741 map of the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera)
Ibiza island with Weather4D R&N and AIS targets
Ibiza harbor chart & AIS targets with Weather4D R&N
In 1973, five men, six women and a 16mm camera drifted across the Atlantic on a raft as part of anthropologist Santiago Genovés’ unique ‘Acali Experiment’; a sociological study of human aggression and sexuality.
Genovés appointed only women to the positions of power on the craft, believing that the group would soon descend into violent power struggles.
Nobody, including (the questionably sexist) Genovés, expected the events that transpired over the three-month journey.
Archive material, a reunion of surviving expedition members and dramatic recreations on a custom-built replica of the raft allow Lindeen to create a compelling portrait of an idea and era.
His questioning documentary probes the tensions between dogma, experience, memory and emotions, and goes some way to restoring dignity to the ‘survivors’. trailer on Vimeo
A fascinating documentary re-examines a notorious anthropological experiment from the 1970s.
There is no collection of human beings too small for conflict, as anyone who has had roommates or endured a family car trip surely knows.
But social science exists to test — and sometimes to affirm — our self-knowledge as a species, which is why 11 people spent the summer of 1973 crossing the Atlantic on a small raft powered only by wind, ocean currents and the ambition of a Mexican anthropologist named Santiago Genovés.
This journey, the subject of a fascinating new documentary called “The Raft,” was not an early exercise in “Real World”-style television, though a film camera was present on board the vessel, silently recording the interactions of the young, international, scantily dressed crew.
Genovés, who designed the Acali (as it was called) and made the crossing with his subjects, was motivated by idealism and curiosity rather than — or perhaps in addition to — prurience.
Crew members aboard the Acali for an experimental trip across the Atlantic in 1973.
In the documentary “The Raft,” participants recount their experience decades later.
Three months without privacy on a raft.
Labelled ‘The Sex Raft’ by tabloids and frowned upon by leading
academics and scientists, the experiment led by anthropologist Santiago
Genoves in 1973 is an incredible story.
The
story of the strangest social experiment of all times - told by those
who took part in it. In 1973, five men and six women sailed across the
Atlantic on a raft.
A
social experiment and a scientific study of violence, aggression, sex
and group behaviour, conducted by a radical Mexican anthropologist.
Everything was filmed and documented in a diary.
But theory is one thing, practice is another.
And without wanting to reveal too much, the experiment didn't exactly work out as planned.
Over
40 years later, Swedish artist and filmmaker Marcus Lindeen brings the
crew together again for the first time since the experiment, on a
faithful copy of the raft in a film studio, to look back at the three
intense months they spent together, isolated and without privacy.
An
experiment that in many ways encapsulates the excessive 1970s, and
which produced a strange wealth of analogue 'big data' about human
relations in the shape of Super 8 footage, statistics and diaries from
the journey.
Credit : Fasad/Metrograph Pictures
After surviving an airplane hijacking, he conceived of an experiment that he hoped would reveal whether violence was wired into the human genetic code or whether it arose through social conditions.
In its mixture of high-mindedness, arrogance and dystopian potential, the voyage of the Acali recalls other notorious undertakings of its era, notably Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. In this case, instead of being confined to cells and divided into opposing groups, the subjects were set adrift for three months and encouraged to be as open and free as possible.
News reports emphasized the salacious aspects of “the Love Raft” — spreading rumors of orgies at sea — which were exaggerated, though not entirely alien to Genovés’s plan.
He had selected his 10 companions based partly on their physical attractiveness, and his questionnaires were designed to get them thinking about sex, which he theorized was a source of conflict.
It turned out to be more of a logistical challenge, given the small dimensions of the Acali and the total absence of privacy.
Genovés’s contemporaneous diaries and later reflections — read in voice-over by the actor Daniel Giménez Cacho (“Zama”) — provide one narrative thread in “The Raft.”
If the director, Marcus Lindeen, had followed the usual documentary methods, blending old footage with interviews and maybe a re-enactment or two, he would have accomplished something worthwhile, illuminating a minor chapter in the history of intellectual hubris and casual nudity.
But what he does is something far more interesting.
By setting Genovés’s words in counterpoint with the recollections of seven of the participants who are still alive, he reinterprets the experiment, finding meanings that the scientist missed. (Genovés died in 2013).
More than 40 years after the crossing from the Canary Islands to Mexico, the six women who sailed on the Acali gather aboard a plywood replica built for the film on a soundstage in SwedenTheir reminiscences are thoughtful and emotional — their well-worn faces beautiful, weathered afterimages of the ones we see in the footage from 1973 — and they expose the complicated power dynamics that emerged in the group, as well as an easy camaraderie that challenged Genovés’s hypothesis.
Lindeen's
film about the Acali experiment is a both dramatic and psychologically
insightful work, which brings a sensational, but almost unknown story
into the present age without losing sight of the nuances of the radical
adventure. Genoves wanted to find the solution to violence
and bring about world peace; his method was to assemble of crew of men
and women from diverse backgrounds and create a microcosm of the world,
but with women in more powerful roles – a climate he hoped would be the
perfect storm.
Bringing
together survivors from the experiment aboard a reconstructed raft
built to proportion in present day, The Raft explores their perceptions
of the events of 45 years ago.
With
an incredible wealth of filmed footage from the raft, and frank
conversations between the living participants, uncomfortable truths
emerge and the nature of Genoves’ controversial experiment is
reconsidered.
When violence failed to erupt — except for one incident, in which the target was an unlucky shark — he tried to instigate it, a blatant violation of basic ethical standards in social science.
Though he comes across in his own writings as witty and self-aware, the picture that emerges decades later is of a moody, manipulative Svengali, blinded by his ego to what was really happening on the raft.
Before setting sail, Genovés had given the most important jobs to women.
Maria Bjornstam, an officer in the Swedish merchant marine, was the captain.
Edna Reves, who had served in the Israeli Army, was the ship’s doctor. Servane Zanotti was the designated diver.
The other men seem to have accepted this arrangement without complaint, but Genovés had a habit of undermining the women’s authority.
For no good reason, he took away Bjornstam’s command, an act of mutiny that, she dryly points out, is generally punishable by death. Another woman, Fé Seymour, one of two black Acali crew members, recalls his casual racism and misogyny, though some of the others disagree.
Their collective testimony amounts to a feminist critique of Genovés’s methods and assumptions. Toward the end, Seymour argues, movingly and persuasively, that the experiment was a success, but not in the way its architect had intended, and not with results he could recognize.
He was so intent on finding violence and dissension that he failed to read the data on solidarity and problem-solving — on the deeply rooted human potential to be decent — that was right in front of his eyes.
Two oil tankers on Thursday morning were reportedly attacked near the Strait of Hormuz
From The Economist A mysterious and violent game may yet lead to war
Shinzo Abe hoped this was a moment for diplomacy.
His visit to Tehran this week, the first by a Japanese prime minister since the Islamic revolution in 1979, was meant to reduce tensions between America and Iran.
After a meeting with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, Mr Abe warned that the region could “accidentally” slip into conflict.
And then, a few miles off Iran’s southern coast, came an illustration of how that might happen.
On June 13th two tankers in the Gulf of Oman sent distress calls after they had been damaged by large explosions.
The Front Altair, flagged in the Marshall Islands and owned by Frontline, a Norwegian shipping company, was hauling a cargo of naphtha, an oil derivative, from Abu Dhabi; the Kokuka Courageous, registered in Panama and operated by the Japanese company Kokuka Sangyo, was laden with methanol.
Both were bound for Asian ports.
Photos from Iranian news agencies showed a fire burning on the starboard side of the Front Altair.
The plume of black smoke overhead was thick enough to appear in satellite images.
One-fifth of the world’s supply travels through the Strait of Hormuz, an important chokepoint for international shipping.
This is the second time in just over a month that tankers have been damaged in the Gulf.
On May 12th four ships anchored off Fujairah, a port in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), had holes blown in their hulls.
A preliminary investigation suggests that they were damaged by limpet mines.
The latest explosions caused far more damage, forcing crews to evacuate both ships as they were underway.
It will take weeks to probe what happened, amid reports of torpedoes being used.
But the explosions do not seem accidental.
The president of Kokuka Sangyo said the Kokuka Courageous vessel was “attacked” twice in a three-hour period.
Nor is it likely that two sets of explosions, weeks apart and in the same area, were mere coincidence.
Though a UAE-led investigative team did not assign blame for last month’s sabotage, it said an unnamed “state actor” carried it out.
America has blamed Iran for both sets of attacks.
Iran, which is a regional rival of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both American allies, has denied responsibility and hints that the latest explosions were orchestrated by its rivals.
“Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired,” tweeted Iran’s foreign minister, Muhammad Javad Zarif, on June 13th.
Iran has in the past threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if it were ever attacked.
Some will see the strikes against ships in the area as a veiled warning of its readiness to make good on its threat.
Messrs Zarif and Rouhani probably understand that attacking regional shipping would be to play with fire.
But they do not call all of the shots in Iran.
They are stuck in an internal battle with Iran’s ruling mullahs, who are more distrustful of the West, and their Revolutionary Guards, who back local forces in Syria and Yemen that have fought against Emirati- and Saudi-backed forces.
Iran has a history of irregular warfare that allows it to maintain a measure of plausible deniability.
In the 1980s it fought the so-called tanker war with Iraq.
The conflict ravaged international shipping.
Tensions in the region have been rising since last spring, when Donald Trump withdrew from the deal, signed in 2015, that loosened sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme.
Mr Trump reimposed sanctions and added new ones, in effect cutting Iran off from the global economy.
After a year of abiding by the agreement, a bid to win European sympathy, Iran last month said it would begin enriching uranium in excess of the prescribed limits.
Mr Rouhani warned that he would abrogate other provisions unless other signatories—Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union—helped his country bypass American sanctions, which is unlikely to happen.
Critics of Mr Trump’s approach have long warned that economic distress would lead Iran to lash out.
For the Arab states across the Gulf, these latest explosions fit into a troubling pattern.
In May, two days after the Fujairah incident, two blasts in the centre of Saudi Arabia, 700km north of the Yemeni border, damaged an oil pipeline that carries crude across the kingdom.
On June 12th a rocket hit the international airport in Abha, a Saudi city 200km from the Yemeni border, injuring 26 people.
Both attacks were carried out by the Houthis, a Shia militia that controls large parts of Yemen and is fighting a Saudi-led coalition there.
A United Nations panel of experts has said that Iran supplied weapons to the Houthis, including drones and missiles, though the group does not always act at Iran's behest.
But Saudi Arabia and its allies have tried not to escalate directly a conflict that would wreak havoc on their oil exports, and thus their economies.
The UAE has been particularly circumspect in its public statements about last month’s sabotage (though in private officials evince little doubt about Iran’s involvement).
If there is to be a response, they would like it to come from America.
Mr Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, has long supported regime change in Iran, and even military action against it.
But the president, as ever, is erratic, toggling between fiery threats and offers of dialogue.
He is reported to have given Mr Abe a message to pass to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei (who declined to reply).
“We do not believe at all that the US is seeking genuine negotiations with Iran; because genuine negotiations would never come from a person like Trump,” said Ayatollah Khamenei.
Mr Trump has already bolstered America’s military presence in the region.
Last month he rushed an aircraft-carrier strike group to the region.
Those vessels have not transited the Strait of Hormuz, an effort to avoid further tension.
They will probably step up their patrols; an American destroyer picked up some sailors from the stricken tankers (Iran says it rescued some too).
The Pentagon is deploying an extra 1,500 troops to bases in Qatar, Bahrain and Iraq, and Mr Trump is invoking emergency powers to override congressional objections and sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
All sides insist they do not want war.
But even if they are sincere, good intentions go only so far.
The Gulf states (and their American protector) cannot tolerate threats to shipping.
Mr Abe was right to push for diplomacy between America and Iran.
But his visit, and the events that overshadowed it, underscore how difficult that will be.
