Friday, October 10, 2003
Annals of Adventure III--(sorry, I've run out of water noises): The French are everywhere! On Thursday rower Maud Fontenoy, 26, dipped her oars for the final strokes of a gruelling transatlantic rowing voyage that took her from the Canadian coast to La Coruna, Spain in a mere....117 days! That's a ridiculously long time to be on the Atlantic in a scaled up 25-foot rowboat, and in fact it was about 6 weeks longer than Fontenoy originally intended. Contrary winds kept her at sea, presumably wishing she had just gone to the Riviera for the summer. But Fontenoy has guts. She kept plugging away, and then spent the last two days of her voyage without sleep, dodging container ships off the Spanish coast and wrestling with dangerous currents. Fontenoy is not the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic but she is the first to do it from west to east. It's not an easy row. To date there have been 22 attempts, of which seven succeeded, 12 failed, and three ended in death. Maud's personal web site is a disaster, but you can find out more about her voyage, as well as lots of interesting stuff about ocean rowing (like the fact that the longest rowing voyage--across the Pacific--took 361 days!), at the Ocean Rowing Society.
Transatlantic Triumph of the Will: "I'd shake your hand, but my blisters are too big....."
(Photo: Ocean Rowing Society)
Transatlantic Triumph of the Will: "I'd shake your hand, but my blisters are too big....."
(Photo: Ocean Rowing Society)
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 5:06 PM 
Annals of Adventure II--Splosh-Splish: There are adventurers and then there are French adventurers. They do all the crazy, obscure stuff (like the guy who recently tried to walk across the Pacific with big pontoons strapped to his feet--he barely got offshore before capsizing). And at this very moment, if you could zoom in on a speck of the Pacific Ocean approximately 600 miles east-northeast of the Tuamotu Islands, you would find a woman named Raphaela Le Gouvello...on a windsurfer...sailing alone from Peru to Tahiti...a mere 65 days into her ambitious journey. Le Gouvello is the first woman to windsurf across the Mediterranean and the first woman to windsurf across the Atlantic. So, c'est logic, she's got to windsurf across the Pacific. And that is exactly what she's doing, attempting to navigate the 4300 miles from Lima, Peru to Papeete, Tahiti (the same voyage Thor Heyerdahl made in Kon-Tiki). Le Gouvello's ride is a purpose-built sailboard that is just over 25 feet long. Fully loaded--with batteries, freeze-fried food, solar panels, watermaker, GPS, satphone (hey, does this thing have a TV?)--it weighs about 1100 pounds, which is a lot of boat to be horsing across the waves for 3 months or more. She's been averaging about 52 miles a day--scraping barnacles off the underside along the way--so should arrive in Tahiti in about 3 weeks. You can follow Le Gouvello's Pacific odyssey on her comprehensive (French adventurers always get tons of great sponsorship) website (in English, even).
Go-Go Le Gouvello: She probably looks more like Heyerdahl by now...
(Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget)
Go-Go Le Gouvello: She probably looks more like Heyerdahl by now...
(Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget)
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 12:01 PM
Annals of Adventure--Splish-Splash: When he was a child, Jim Dreyer, 40, almost drowned. This week he wrapped up a little swim....that took him from one end of Lake Michigan to the other, 340 miles total in 31 days. Before you gasp "That's one crazy motherf***er!" it's important to note that it wasn't a continuous swim. Instead it was broken into 16 stages, and Dreyer kicked back in a camper at various campsites along the way to rest between the 20-30 mile stages. But still: he had to swim through 12-20 foot swells on occasion ("it was like being dropped off a two-story building"), and kept churning through hail, winds up to 40 knots, and even a little snow. He lost 20 pounds of muscle mass through the ordeal. Dreyer probably should have a Great Lakes fish named after him. Prior to this stunt, he made the first direct crossing of Lake Michigan (65 miles, 41 hours), swam across Lake Huron (53 miles, 39 hours), and bagged Lake Erie (immediately following the swim with a full marathon through beach sand) and Lake Ontario (completing a full marathon and 130 miles of biking before hitting the water). Dreyer twice set the Lake Superior distance record (his best now stands at at 48 miles), braving 37 degree water. With all that time in the Lakes it's amazing he wasn't run down by the Edmund Fitzgerald . For all this, and for raising money for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America while risking permanent prune skin, I hereby nominate Jim Dreyer Wetass of the Week.
Swimicus Nonstopicus Jim Dreyer: "I wonder what's on Oprah....."
Swimicus Nonstopicus Jim Dreyer: "I wonder what's on Oprah....."
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 10:59 AM
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Maul Story 4 (Not for the Squeamish): Turns out there is an audiotape of the last three minutes of Timothy Treadwell's life, which captures his mauling by a bear in the Katmai National Park and Preserve. Police speculate that he might have been wearing a sound-activated mike when he was attacked. "Get out of here. I'm getting killed," Treadwell yelled to his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard. Huguenard can be heard yelling, amid the scuffling and screaming, "play dead," which is the recommended initial response to a bear attack. When the bear keeps laying into Treadwell, she yells "fight back," which is a not very attractive Option 2. Shortly thereafter, Treadwell pleads "hit him with a pan." Then the tape goes dead. The Anchorage Daily News has the full story, plus a lot more background on Treadwell's apparent compulsion to get really, really close to bears. He claimed he could calm them with his sing-song voice, and tell from their body language whether they were about to get aggressive. Apparently not. But at least he died doing something he loved....and not in a road rage accident commuting to a cubicle.
Bear-Boy Treadwell and girlfriend Amie Huguenard
Photos: Anchorage Daily News; Huguenard courtesy of Kathie Stowell
Bear-Boy Treadwell and girlfriend Amie Huguenard
Photos: Anchorage Daily News; Huguenard courtesy of Kathie Stowell
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 3:53 PM
Maul Story III: Here's a wild animal on human encounter that is both tragic and ironic. Bear lover, and self-taught bear expert Timothy Treadwell, 46, was killed in Alaska's Katmai National Park, along with a female companion named Amie Huguenard, 37. Treadwell was the author of "Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska," and founded an organization called Grizzly People, which was devoted to preserving bears and their wilderness habitat (as opposed to locking them up as pets in Harlem or parading them around on a Las Vegas stage). The full story can be found here. It is a cautionary tale as well because Treadwell, despite his expertise, was known for getting extremely close to the wild animals that he loved--close enough to touch them, sing to them, and give them names. Park Service officials, in fact, warned Treadwell that he was setting a dangerous example for other park visitors, as well as endangering himself. Though no one knows the circumstances under which Treadwell and Huguenard were killed, if Treadwell was crossing boundaries with the bears (Grizzly People firmly warns people to stay at least 100 yards away) he was ultimately a danger to the wild--emphasis on wild--animals he was trying to protect: Park rangers killed two brown bears near Treadwell's camp site as they recovered the bodies...
"Oh Man, I should have stayed with the fish..."
Photo: Grizzly People
"Oh Man, I should have stayed with the fish..."
Photo: Grizzly People
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 10:07 AM
Mari-Cha-Wanna! As expected, the big schooner smoked across the finish line off the Lizard, at the southwest corner of England, to set an impressive new transatlantic record. Her time to sail 2925 miles of Atlantic Ocean was 6 days 17 hours and 52 minutes. That's an average speed of 18.2 knots, enough to obliterate Swiss sailor Bernard Stamm's current record by just over two days. Owner Bob Miller, who previously owned the record with his Mari-Cha III and had it taken from him by Stamm, can rest assured that he'll hang onto this one for quite a while--at least until some other billionaire decides to build a 140-foot flat-out racing machine and takes it out record hunting. Mari-Cha now heads to the yard for some finish work before sailing off to the Caribbean for the winter. Hopefully, Miller will get the itch to take her around the world sooner rather than later. He believes Mari-Cha IV can top 40 knots (almost 50 mph), but the only place she'll ever get the chance to do it is in the Southern Ocean, surfing a big, old greybeard with a ton of wind bowling her along. And that's a sight I'd like to see.
Owner Miller: "Maybe the $10 million this thing is costing
me is worth it...."
Owner Miller: "Maybe the $10 million this thing is costing
me is worth it...."
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 9:30 AM
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Let Them Go IV: A few years back it was "Summer of the Shark." Now it is "Autumn of the Tiger." One tiger bites a performer in Las Vegas. Another bites a guy in Harlem. And.....presto...you get CNN, flood the zone coverage in newspapers AND a word from the New York Times editors who, taking time out from Iraq and the Middle East, opine thus in an editorial:
"But the ultimate illusion onstage at the MGM Mirage and at Mr. Yates's apartment was always the illusion that these animals could be tamed, an image reinforced by innumerable publicity photos of Siegfried & Roy lounging with their animals. As Montecore and Ming have proved, tigers, like all big cats, remain wild under the skin, even if they have never lived in the wild. Big cats deserve better than to be kept as pets. There are as few as 5,000 tigers remaining in the wild, down from some 100,000 a century ago. Tigers have enough trouble as it is."
You know the planets are moving into alignment when the august NYT is lining up with People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who managed to flame Roy Horn with a fax to his Las Vegas hospital room. Wrote PETA VP Dan Matthews:
"Perhaps Friday's frightening incident will make you realize that a brightly lit stage with pounding music and a screaming audience is not the natural habitat for tigers, lions, or any other exotic animals....The only natural thing that happened on that stage was that this majestic animal lashed out against a captor who was beating him with a microphone because he wouldn't do a trick....No matter how much you say that you love the wild animals whom you have confined continents away from their natural homes, you are still the men who have subjugated their wills and natures to further your own careers."
Note to PETA: Ummm, I don't think Horn is reading quite yet.
"But the ultimate illusion onstage at the MGM Mirage and at Mr. Yates's apartment was always the illusion that these animals could be tamed, an image reinforced by innumerable publicity photos of Siegfried & Roy lounging with their animals. As Montecore and Ming have proved, tigers, like all big cats, remain wild under the skin, even if they have never lived in the wild. Big cats deserve better than to be kept as pets. There are as few as 5,000 tigers remaining in the wild, down from some 100,000 a century ago. Tigers have enough trouble as it is."
You know the planets are moving into alignment when the august NYT is lining up with People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who managed to flame Roy Horn with a fax to his Las Vegas hospital room. Wrote PETA VP Dan Matthews:
"Perhaps Friday's frightening incident will make you realize that a brightly lit stage with pounding music and a screaming audience is not the natural habitat for tigers, lions, or any other exotic animals....The only natural thing that happened on that stage was that this majestic animal lashed out against a captor who was beating him with a microphone because he wouldn't do a trick....No matter how much you say that you love the wild animals whom you have confined continents away from their natural homes, you are still the men who have subjugated their wills and natures to further your own careers."
Note to PETA: Ummm, I don't think Horn is reading quite yet.
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 10:31 AM
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Cha, Cha, Cha!: Fresh from minting a new 24-hour record (525 miles), Mari-Cha IV also looks set to smash the current monohull transatlantic record of 8 days, 20 hours. So far she has averaged about 18.4 knots, and if she keeps that speed up (as she looks set to do given the weather forecasts), she'll waltz across the finish line in the English Channel about mid-day Thursday. That would lop more than two days off the existing record, and set a new mark of just over six and a half days. Wow. It would also put Mari-Cha's crossing time very close, if not under, the outright transatlantic record of 6 days 13 hours that Jet Services V--a catamaran--set in 1990. Jet Services' mark survived eleven years and numerous multihull attempts, until it was broken by Steve Fossett in his 125-foot catamaran PlayStation in a time of 4 days and 17 hours. Mari Cha can't compete against the modern maxi-multihulls like PlayStation (now called "Cheyenne"). But to be in the company of Jet Services and the previous generation of multihulls is unbelievable. Jet Services V went on to become, as Commodore Explorer, the first sailboat to take the Jules Verne Trophy by lapping the planet non-stop in under 80 days. Could Mari-Cha IV get through the 80-day barrier as well? Let's hope Mari Cha's owner Bob Miller takes a shot sometime soon.......
Sail repair: "Mother of God, this thing is HUGE!"
Sail repair: "Mother of God, this thing is HUGE!"
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 2:41 PM
Everest is for wimps! The world's tallest mountain gets all the hype, but if you are looking to climb the world's most dangerous mountain you need to go elsewhere. Explorers Web is running a fascinating and eye-opening series called "Killer Mountains" which--using numbers compiled by AdventureStats--compares the fatality rates on the world's fourteen 8,000 meter peaks. The series has yet to feature Kangchenjunga, Lhotse and Shisha Pangma, but the big picture is already pretty clear. Overall, Everest is far from the world's deadliest mountain. More than 1900 climbers have made it to the top, while 179 have died in the attempt, yielding an overall fatality rate of 9.3 percent. Of the 11 peaks examined so far, only Cho Oyu, Gasherbrum II, and Broad Peak have lower overall fatality rates. The deadliest? Annapurna, which has killed 53 climbers while allowing only 130 to summit, for a brutal 40 percent overall fatality rate. K2 is the second most deadly mountain overall, with close to a 27 percent fatality rate.
Annapurna: A real bitch
Photo: Explorer's Web
What about in recent years? Explorers Web gives those stats as well. Since 1990, Annapurna and K2 have been the hardest on climbers, killing almost one in five, while Everest has just a 4.4 percent fatality rate. In fact, since 1990, Makalu, Dhaulagirl, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, and Broad Peak, as well as K2 and Annapurna, have been deadlier climbs than Everest. Want to be able to brag about bagging an 8,000 meter peak, but don't want to take undue risks? Well, the easiest of the peaks analyzed so far has been....Gasherbrum II, at 8,034 meters, in the Karakoram range. GII's overall fatality rate has been 2.62 percent, but since 1990 there have been only 2 deaths and 457 successful summits, for a fatality rate that is less than half of one percent. Those are odds a lot of people can live with.....
G2: C'mon baby, climb me
Photo: Explorer's Web
Annapurna: A real bitch
Photo: Explorer's Web
What about in recent years? Explorers Web gives those stats as well. Since 1990, Annapurna and K2 have been the hardest on climbers, killing almost one in five, while Everest has just a 4.4 percent fatality rate. In fact, since 1990, Makalu, Dhaulagirl, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, and Broad Peak, as well as K2 and Annapurna, have been deadlier climbs than Everest. Want to be able to brag about bagging an 8,000 meter peak, but don't want to take undue risks? Well, the easiest of the peaks analyzed so far has been....Gasherbrum II, at 8,034 meters, in the Karakoram range. GII's overall fatality rate has been 2.62 percent, but since 1990 there have been only 2 deaths and 457 successful summits, for a fatality rate that is less than half of one percent. Those are odds a lot of people can live with.....
G2: C'mon baby, climb me
Photo: Explorer's Web
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 12:38 PM
Southward Ho!: The polar expedition season is upon us and the Pole down under is the target of some ambitious shennanigans. In November, a British woman named Rosie Stancer will set out to walk solo and unsupported--no air drops, no support team, no dogs, just a big old sledge that weighs twice as much as Rosie--from the coast to the South Pole. That's about 600 miles of wicked cold, howling winds, and treacherous crevasses. Rosie is being sponsored by Snickers so she'll likely be relying on a lot of chocolate to see her through. If she makes it she will become the first woman to get to the bottom of the world alone and without assistance. You can follow Rosie's trials here. Rosie will not be entirely alone on the ice, though. She has some competition, in the form of Fiona Thornewill, also British, who has the obscure distinction of being half of the first married couple (along with husband Mike) to reach both poles. It's getting harder and harder to do something new, isn't it? No web site that I could find. Finally, Brits Pete Goss and Alan Chambers will try to do what Robert Scott could not in 1911--walk from McMurdo to the Pole and back without freezing to death. Surprisingly, no one has ever completed the route that Scott intended, and Goss and Chambers hope to survive the 1400 mile journey with the judicious application of modern technology--kites to help them pull their sledges, the latest in clothing, a superlight stove. It won't be an easy trek--across the Ross Ice Shelf and up the 10,000 foot Beardmore Glacier--but imagine how hard it would be to truly recreate Scott's expedition....with 1911 clothing and technology. You can follow Goss and Chambers here.
Brrrrr..Goss Practices Being Cold
Brrrrr..Goss Practices Being Cold
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 10:34 AM
Monday, October 06, 2003
500-mile barrier smashed!:Well, she did it. Mari-Cha found favorable wind and took the 24-hour record through the 500 mile mark. At the latest update she had reeled off more than 517 miles in 24-hours, an average speed of more than 21.54 knots. She's still cooking, though, and could take the record higher. The maxi-schooner is also on track, if the weather predictions hold true, to smash the transatlantic record, maybe even hitting the English Channel as early as Thursday. If she does, it will be an amazing run, taking down two of the big three records in one outing. That will leave the monohull, non-stop round the world record, which currently stands at just over 93 days, which in theory she should be able to break easily (she'd have to average just 9.74 knots). Though the Southern Ocean doesn't have a lot of respect for theory, Mari Cha IV could have a shot at taking the monohull round the world record under 80 days (required average speed:14-15 knots, depending on route). I already feel like someone needs to build another huge monohull to give Mari-Cha IV another boat to compete against.
Are We There Yet?
Are We There Yet?
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 10:12 AM
WetAss Hall of Fame: There's a new biography of Martha Gellhorn, one of the last century's most extraordinary war correspondents. Gellhorn, a beautiful blonde, warmed up with the Spanish Civil War and then went on to land on Omaha Beach shortly after D-Day. She was there at Dachau, and covered Nuremberg, always writing with style, punch, and a keen eye for the human story. Gellhorn was perhaps best known for becoming Ernest Hemingway's third wife, but was so dedicated to pursuing her craft to the far ends of the earth that she prompted an annoyed Hemingway to growl: "Are you a war correspondent or my wife in bed?" She answered the question by divorcing him. Check out the book here.
Hunting with Papa, 1940
Robert Capa, © 2001 by Cornell Capa
Hunting with Papa, 1940
Robert Capa, © 2001 by Cornell Capa
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 9:14 AM
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Mari-Cha Update: Still averaging better than 17 knots, and almost halfway home. With favorable winds on the way, the crew is getting worked up for a try at the 24-hour record (they'd like to be the first monohull to sail 500 miles in a day). Here's a taste of life from onboard. Getting fish wrapped around the keel is an increasingly common feature of record-breaking sailing, as the boats get faster and faster.
Sunday 5th October 2003 6:26:41 UTC
Update by Mike 'Moose' Sanderson: Helmsman
Well, day three has really turned it on for us. After having tacked through the trough yesterday afternoon, we have since been reaching on course at nice high speeds.
We have had a couple of little situations over the last 12 hours: firstly, last night we where sailing along at 20 plus knots and we heard a thud. We knew we hadn't hit anything hard but where struggling to get the boat back up to speed. After checking that we weren't dragging an old fishing net or something, we decided to trapeze Jan off the side of the boat on a halyard with a big torch to see if he could see the reason for us struggling to get back to our nice high 20 plus knots. He could see a shadow on the keel - which is canted out to weather 40 degrees when we are reaching so making it a lot closer to the surface and easier then most Yachts to see. Unfortunately we identified the culprit as some form of sea life - a shark or a sunfish or something had got itself stuck on the keel at high speed!!! Ouch!!!!
Having identified the cause, we had to drop the Jibtop and go about backing the boat down (sailing backwards) so that we could get the poor thing off the keel. It was a really successful mission for everyone apart from the fish and soon we where back doing our frantic pace towards England.
The early hours of the morning brought our second bit of excitement for the day: this time we where blasting along with the Code 7 on ,which is a tight luffed reaching Gennaker, and the luff rope snapped. This sent the whole 470 square metres of Cuben Fiber into the ocean. Fortunately, with the whole crew lining the gunwale of the boat we where able to haul the thing back on board in one piece and the guys set straight to work fixing it. The good news is that it was time for a sail change anyway so luck seems to be on our side at this stage and the Code 7 also lives to fight another day.
The grey North Atlantic
Sunday 5th October 2003 6:26:41 UTC
Update by Mike 'Moose' Sanderson: Helmsman
Well, day three has really turned it on for us. After having tacked through the trough yesterday afternoon, we have since been reaching on course at nice high speeds.
We have had a couple of little situations over the last 12 hours: firstly, last night we where sailing along at 20 plus knots and we heard a thud. We knew we hadn't hit anything hard but where struggling to get the boat back up to speed. After checking that we weren't dragging an old fishing net or something, we decided to trapeze Jan off the side of the boat on a halyard with a big torch to see if he could see the reason for us struggling to get back to our nice high 20 plus knots. He could see a shadow on the keel - which is canted out to weather 40 degrees when we are reaching so making it a lot closer to the surface and easier then most Yachts to see. Unfortunately we identified the culprit as some form of sea life - a shark or a sunfish or something had got itself stuck on the keel at high speed!!! Ouch!!!!
Having identified the cause, we had to drop the Jibtop and go about backing the boat down (sailing backwards) so that we could get the poor thing off the keel. It was a really successful mission for everyone apart from the fish and soon we where back doing our frantic pace towards England.
The early hours of the morning brought our second bit of excitement for the day: this time we where blasting along with the Code 7 on ,which is a tight luffed reaching Gennaker, and the luff rope snapped. This sent the whole 470 square metres of Cuben Fiber into the ocean. Fortunately, with the whole crew lining the gunwale of the boat we where able to haul the thing back on board in one piece and the guys set straight to work fixing it. The good news is that it was time for a sail change anyway so luck seems to be on our side at this stage and the Code 7 also lives to fight another day.
The grey North Atlantic
Posted by Tim Zimmermann @ 8:17 PM
![[Valid Atom]](http://www.wetasschronicles.com/artwork/valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom feed"){kind=small}
