Sixth W2N Newsletter

W2N 'Where to Next?'
Rob 'Bee' Clark
Fri 5 Sep 2008 09:21

Welcome to the sixth   newsletter

 

5th September 2008

 

Two Weeks!

 

Yep, in just two weeks and two days, I’ll be setting off on an extraordinary adventure… gulp!

 

I’d love to tell you that I am completely prepared, utterly confident and anxious to get going. I’d love to tell you that the website has been inundated with people eager to cast their vote for the first destination and I’d love to report that Industry Leaders and Entrepreneurs have been falling over themselves to sponsor the W2N project… I’d love to, but I can’t! As I write, a gale-force wind is howling through the rigging and waves are crashing against the hull… and I’m moored up on the pontoon at Wicormarine! Votes are starting to trickle in and currently favour a route around the coast of South Africa, Cape of Good Hope and back up to India via Madagascar and the Seychelles. That might have something to do with my trip to Shanghai a couple of weeks ago where I met with several members of the Shanghai Boat and Yacht Club ( www.shanghaibyc.org ) of which my brother Colin is Commodore. An easterly route would almost guarantee a cruise up the east coast of China and as I’ll be flying the SBYC burgee, it would be fantastic to dodge the pirates to grace the shores of this unfathomable, chaotic and dynamic city.

 

 

 

So, you could argue that the weather in Portsmouth right now would be incentive enough to just slip the lines and head for the lower latitudes! With recent reports of Tropical Storms and Hurricanes in the Atlantic and with this disgusting weather battering the south coast, I can’t help but feel a little apprehensive about the prospect. I am still excited about my imminent departure though – very excited actually. I helped my friend Chris sail his Grand Soleil 42 Swagman across the notorious Bay of Biscay a week ago and having faced enormous seas for the second time in the Bay, I’ll be embarking on my adventure confident in my own ability to cope and certain that tolerating (perhaps even relishing) the rough stuff is always rewarded with a few precious moments of extraordinary sailing. Take for example, midway between La Coruna and Ushant in the middle of the Bay, on my night watch, accompanied by half a dozen dolphins playfully leaping through a spectacularly phosphorescent bow-wave. It really was one of those rare moments that defies adequate explanation and yet remains etched vividly on the memory in exquisite detail.

 

Media Interest Explodes… well, pops a bit!

 

On Tuesday, I issued a statement to the Press Association. The Southern Daily Echo, a local south coast newspaper had covered the story of my single-handed dice adventure with a full page (page 3!) article and it became clear that there might be some mainstream media interest. Yachting Monthly had covered the story back in April and again in May but besides that, nobody from the yachting press had really got terribly excited about the concept. Well, the result was spectacular. In just two days, I have appeared live on a number of radio stations from Spain and Miami to, well, Portsmouth and featured in the News pages of several local and national newspapers. I spent yesterday morning filming with the BBC’s South Today program (or is it ‘programme’, I’m never sure!) and have scheduled some more filming with ITV this weekend.

 

Watch the South Today clip here… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7599101.stm

 

By the way, if you were wondering, when I threw the dice to decide how Tom would get ashore (dinghy or swimming!), it really was the first ‘take’ in which the dice revealed a ‘five’ to secure his place on the tender… honest!

 

So, it’s all just a bit of fun and I’m enjoying my 15 minutes of fame but with any luck this exposure will, at the very least, introduce a few more people to the project. If it attracts a sponsorship offer then that would of course be a huge boost but by coincidence (he couldn’t possibly have seen the BBC news article), I had an email from Luke Rhinehart’s PR Agent last night! If you don’t know already, Luke Rhinehart wrote several best-selling books including The Dice Man which, besides enjoying massive international success, was the inspiration for my own Dice adventure. We’ll see where that goes but I am honoured to have received best wishes not just from Luke and his team but from the presenter of Discovery Channel’s Diceman Travel Show; Russell Harris. Luke and Russell are both keen sailors and are following the W2N project with interest.

 

Check out…

 

http://www.lukerhinehart.net/New-Home.html

http://www.diceman.co.uk/

 

 

Minoru Saito ‘Challenge 8’

 

Oh, and while you’re at it, one week after my departure from Portsmouth, 74 year old Minoru Saito will be setting off on his eighth… yes, eighth single-handed non-stop circumnavigation. Follow his incredible adventure here… http://www.saito8.com/index.htm

 

 

‘Live’ Position Reports and Blog

 

Keep your eyes on the website (www.w2n.co.uk) for a new and exciting addition coming very soon. I’ve subscribed to a package designed by www.MailASail.com specifically for circumnavigators and I’m just waiting for my Web Designer to see if it can be embedded into the W2N pages. Basically, with my new Iridium Satellite Telephone, I will be able to submit regular blog updates to the website from anywhere in the world. Even in middle of the oceans, by submitting a blog entry, my position, illustrated using Google Maps, will be updated automatically. The package also works as an email compression software and provides essential weather information so it really is quite a useful tool.

 

As I say, it’s currently being developed so if it’s not yet on the W2N website, you can follow the link here… http://blog.mailasail.com/w2n. Why not click on ‘List All Users’ and have a read of a few blog entries from other cruising yachts.

 

Actually, it’s not related but reminds of a website that Tom Hepworth, the BBC reporter told me about yesterday. Take a look at http://www.shipais.com/index.php. It uses the same AIS technology that I’ve installed on Canasta but it’s interesting to see, at a glance, the incredible number of ships lurking about out there!

 

 

‘Dice’ or ‘Die’?

 

A dice is just a dice, right? Well you could be forgiven for thinking that it is simply a tiny cube with the numbers one to six printed or embossed on each of its six sides. And that’s what I thought too until the question arose regarding the correct use of ‘dice’ or ‘die’ which prompted what I thought would be a quick glance at Wikipedia to clarify the issue. Well, a ‘dice’ is in fact a ‘die’ and the plural of ‘die’ is ‘dice’! Still with me? This is something I shall ignore completely for reasons I’ll explain shortly but the humble dice are polyhedral, opposite numbers will usually total seven and the sequence of dots forming the five is known as a quincunx. There’s more of course. If you’re interested (I was until I saw the formulas), Wikipedia goes into infinite detail about probability but you need to be a boffin to understand it. Apparently, and I’m certainly not qualified to question it, for a single roll of the dice, the probability is 1/s. Simple.

For three or more die rolls, the curve becomes more bell-shaped with each additional die (according to the central limit theorem). The exact probability distribution Fs,i of a sum of i s-sided dice can be calculated as the repeated convolution of the single-die probability distribution with itself.

 

F_{s,i}(k) = \sum_n {F_{s,1}(n) F_{s,i-1}(k - n)} \,where F_{s,1}(k) = \frac{1}{s} for all 1\leq k \leq s and 0 otherwise.

 

A fastest algorithm would adapt the exponentiation by squaring algorithm, using F_{s,x+y}(k) = \sum_n {F_{s,x}(n) F_{s,y}(k - n)} \,.

 

For example, in the triangular curve described above,

F_{6,2}(6)\,

=\sum_n {F_{6,1}(n) F_{6,1}(6 - n)}\,

 

=F_{6,1}(1) F_{6,1}(5) + F_{6,1}(2) F_{6,1}(4) + \ldots + F_{6,1}(5) F_{6,1}(1)\,

 

=5\cdot\frac{1}{6}\cdot\frac{1}{6}=\frac{5}{36}\approx0.14\,

 

Equivalently, one can calculate the probability using combinations: F_{s,i}(k)=\frac{1}{s^i}\sum_{n=0}^{\left \lfloor \frac{k-i}{s} \right \rfloor} (-1)^n {i \choose n} {k-sn-1 \choose i-1}

 

So there you go. Simple!

 

Sadly, there are no algebraic formulae to explain why I’m going to call a ‘die’ a ‘dice’. In fact most of my dice decisions will use just one die but I think, like most people, I’ve managed to survive thirty six years of using the term ‘dice’ erroneously without too much confusion. Perhaps I’ve avoided associating with such pedantry people who would draw attention to such a trivial oversight but I don’t think too many people will mind if, for continuity, I stick to the generic term ‘dice’ to describe the singular and the plural.

 

 

VOTE NOW!

 

The first serious vote that’ll determine in which direction I’ll be circumnavigating the world is now online. This one is for real so log into the forum at http://www.w2n.co.uk/forum.html, take a look at the options and use your vote carefully! Put simply, there are only four options to choose from and they are the two canals (Panama or Suez) or the two capes (Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn). This vote will run until the 20th September when the winning route will be announced and the dice will decide the first landfall.

 

So, from Portsmouth, the options...

1. Heading SW via the Channel Islands before crossing the Bay of Biscay and following the coast of Spain and Portugal before turning left at Gibraltar and committing to an Easterly circumnavigation via the Mediterranean. This would appear to be the most comfortable option - and it is for a while, except that an easterly lap would inevitably include a cold and dangerous North Pacific passage.

2. Heading SW, again down the Spanish / Portuguese coast to Madeira or the Canary Islands before continuing south and rounding South Africa the long way via the Cape of Good Hope. Again, this starts by following the recognised cruising routes but going the long way around South Africa wouldn't be everybody's choice. Just as with option 1, this route would include an easterly crossing of the Indian and Pacific oceans although it would include a fascinating cruise around much of Asia and up the eastern Chinese coast.

3. Perhaps the most favoured westerly cruising route. Heading SW either directly from Portsmouth via the Channel Islands and across the Bay of Biscay or W to Lizard and directly to the Madeira or the Canary Islands before following the trade winds to the Caribbean. Traditionally, this route would then continue through the Panama Canal from where there are dozens of fascinating Pacific Islands to choose from. The biggest danger with this option would be catching the tail end of the 'Tropical Storm' season in the Atlantic.

4. Starting just as in option 3, but instead of following the trade winds to the Caribbean, option 4 would head straight for South America. This would of course be fascinating but having committed to a westerly circumnavigation, I would be faced with the reality of negotiating the Straits of Magellan or perhaps even Cape Horn, the most feared Cape in the world. It really would be an epic adventure that would make any sailor proud to have achieved but it is a notoriously dangerous prospect.

 

Option 1           Mediterranean

Option 2           South Africa

Option 3           Caribbean

Option 4           South America


Okay, so there are the options. You can change your vote as often as you like but the option with the most votes on 20th September 2008 WILL be the one I'll commit to. The winning option will determine the general direction and the dice will then decide each landfall on that route.

Be nice!

 

 

THE DICE PARTY

 

You’ll know by now that the ‘Where to Next?’ circumnavigation starts on September 21st 2008 – not long now. Well, you would of course be very welcome to come and wave me off from Wicormarine in Portchester but I’d like to invite you to a ‘Dice Party’ on September 20th. I don’t know yet where it’ll be or how many people will turn up but let me know if you’re interested and I can start thinking of some suitably random ways of introducing you to the Dice Life! Email me at rob {CHANGE TO AT} w2n {DOT} co {DOT} uk if you think you might be able to come and I’ll post more information on the next newsletter.

 

 

 

That’s all for now. Thanks for your interest in the w2n project and please don’t hesitate to contact me with your comments and thoughts. Please feel free to participate in the forum on the w2n website (www.w2n.co.uk) and introduce your friends to the project.

 

 

 

All my very best,

 

 

 

Rob (Bee)

 

 

You are receiving this newsletter because you have either registered an interest or because you haven’t – and I think you should! If you are receiving it in error, please let me know by simply replying to the email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

 

 

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rob {CHANGE TO AT} w2n {DOT} co {DOT} uk