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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
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From: Wolfgang K?berer
Date: 2006 May 26, 18:45 +0200
From: Wolfgang K?berer
Date: 2006 May 26, 18:45 +0200
Dear all, I just looked at the archive for May '06. 306 messages (although quite a few are 'meta-messages' concerned with the list itself. But isn't it alive and kicking?) Apart from that: good luck, Zed. I hope you can do as good a job as your predecessor. Wolfgang -----Ursprungliche Nachricht----- Von: Navigation Mailing List [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]Im Auftrag von Peter Fogg Gesendet: Freitag, 26. Mai 2006 01:10 An: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM Betreff: 'Geronimo' crosses Pacific in 14 days The huge multi-hull 'Geronimo' skippered by Olivier de Kersauson has recently established a new record for a trans Pacific crossing under sail of 14 days 19 hours between San Francisco and Yokohama. 'Geronimo' actually travelled 5,600 (nautical?) miles, thus an average speed of 15.8 knots. This eclipses Steve Fossett's previous record, set not so long ago, by 4 days, 17 hours. According to de Kersauson: "The crossing was magnificent. Everything was excessive, with the weather changing and shifting around at a mad pace: it was exhausting and exhilarating, except for the final section, which was more of an exasperation. The last 1000 miles were incredibly violent". By way of contrast, the first trans Pacific crossing BY AIR was in 1927 when Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew flew a Fokker Trimotor named the 'Southern Cross' from Oakland, California, to Brisbane, Australia via Honolulu and Fiji in nine days. Some of the sailing speed records over various courses were set more than a hundred years ago by the 'clipper' and similar timber multi-masted sailing ships. They are only now coming under threat by modern multi-hulled monsters. Even in doldrum conditions where any other sailing boat sits limply these craft seem to create their own wind and continue at about 5 knots, although that seems standing still compared to their typical speeds. Because of this they are nearly always sailing upwind; their speed means that regardless of the actual wind direction their apparent wind is nearly always from ahead. This is in contrast to the old sailing ships that could only sail downwind. Multi-hulls have been regarded with some suspicion by mono-hull sailors, but it is notable how few disasters have accompanied the now many passages of these incredibly fast and demanding boats, in all sorts of seas and conditions.
