On the Italian TV show above you see Alex Bellini's boat being towed to Newcastle, Alex was on the tug.
!ALEX DID NOT ROW TO SYDNEY! contrary the impression you may get from a stage managed YouTube video of Alex being welcomed to Sydney on Sydney Harbour.
ALEX BOAT WAS TOWED BY A TUG BOAT 269km to Newcastle. ALEX BOAT WAS THEN TRANSPORTED BY ROAD TO SYDNEY. ALEX BOAT WAS THEN LAUNCHED ONTO SYDNEY HARBOUR
AND TOWED BY A RIGID INFLATABLE TO WHERE YOU SEE THE WELCOMING COMMITTEE.
(Alex was towed 145nm(269km) to Newcastle from 65nm(120km) off the Austalian coast. Alex was 200nm(370km) from his stated destination, Sydney.)
OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM OCEAN ROWING SOCIETY ON THEIR WEBSITE:
"Alex Bellini has completed his row of the Pacific Ocean from Callao, Peru to Australia in his boat Rosa di Atacama II - the boat he rowed the Atlantic from Genoa, Italy to Fortaleza, Brazil in 2005"
Pacific E to W (solo) - Alex Bellini Italy - Rosa d'Atacama II - February 21 2008 19:40GMT - December 12 2008 - 294 days 7h 20min - Callao, Peru - The Coral Sea, 65 miles off the coast of Australia
Pacific E to W (solo) - Jim Shekhdar UK - Le Shark - June 29 2000 - March 30 2001 - 273 days 13h 12min - Ilo (Peru) - N Stradbroke, Australia
In my opinion it was very unlikely Alex would have reached the Australian mainland from the position he was in.
If he had taken a different route from New Caledonia to Queensland he had a high probability of reaching the Australian coast.
But he opted to accept very high odds of failure by attempting to row to Sydney. It was Alex call and it did not pay off. He did not reach the Australian coast period, and looking at the currents chart he was extremely unlikely to have done so.
Jim Shekdar was able to reach Brisbane, Queensland Australia from Ilo Peru in South America without being towed to Australia.
From now on can I climb to within 50 metres of the summit of Everest, get my Sherpas to carry me to the top, and consider that a successful attempt?
(Google machine translation from Italian)
ORIGINAL MESSAGE FROM ALEX TEAM: (The one I took issue with)
"Alex is in Australia!
Off Newcastle, Alex and his team, given the poor
weather conditions laid down, unusual for the season, have
considered closed the crossing, providing the meeting with a ship
that accompany the port.
The arrival of Alex in Newcastle, is scheduled for Saturday December 13 at
18:30 for customs formalities. E 'organized a meeting with fans and
Average Sunday December 14 at Man of War jetty next to the Opera House
Sydney from 10:00 to 10:30.
The crossing is concluded successfully, providing further
different records.
With 295 days of passage, Alex has been in solitary remata
successfully longest in history. John Fairfax had made 361
day, but twice. Peter Bird had 294 days, therefore, Alex
beyond. Peter Bird always had 304 days, but with
recovery / rescue final, then without success. Erden had Eruca
made 312 days, but was later recovered by a vessel 200
miles (370 km) from Earth.
With 541 days spent at sea in remate transoceaniche Alex reaches
the second ranking position in absolute overcoming John Fairfax
(which unlike Alex has made 361 of his 541 days in twice)."
(Google machine translation from Italian)
AMENDED MESSAGE FROM ALEX TEAM:
Alex is in Australia!
Off Newcastle, Alex and his team, given the poor
weather conditions laid down, unusual for the season, have
considered closed the crossing, providing the meeting with a ship
that accompany the port from 61.6 nautical miles from
coast.
The arrival of Alex in Newcastle, is scheduled for Saturday December 13 at
18:30 for customs formalities. E 'organized a meeting with fans and
Average Sunday December 14 at Man of War jetty next to the Opera House
Sydney from 10.00 to 12.30.
The crossing is concluded successfully, providing further
different records.
With 294 days, 9 hours and 6 minutes to traverse, Alex, as
formalized by Ocean Rowing Society:
... comes to a total time at sea for 540 days, for the third time,
1 day from the second, John Fairfax. Recall that John Fairfax had
made 361 of its 541 double.
... equals the remata transpacifica Peter Bird of 294 days.
Alex has remato to 9364 nautical miles, equal to 17,342 km.
(Amended Italian version)
Alex è in Australia!
Al largo di Newcastle, Alex ed il suo team, alla luce delle cattive condizioni meteorologiche previste, anomale per la stagione, hanno ritenuto conclusa la traversata, provvedendo all´incontro con una nave che lo accompagnasse in porto a partire da 61,6 miglia nautiche dalla costa.
L´arrivo di Alex a Newcastle, è previsto per sabato 13 dicembre alle ore 18:30 per le formalita doganali. E´ organizzato un incontro con fans e media domenica 14 dicembre al molo Man of War accanto all´Opera House di Sydney dalle 10:00 alle 12:30.
La traversata si conclude quindi con successo, stabilendo inoltre diversi record.
Con 294 giorni, 9 ore e 6 minuti di traversata, Alex, come ufficializzato da Ocean Rowing Society:
...giunge ad un tempo totale in mare di 540 giorni, il terzo per durata, a 1 giorno da secondo, John Fairfax. Ricordiamo che John Fairfax aveva fatto 361 dei suoi 541 in doppio.
...uguaglia la remata transpacifica di Peter Bird di 294 giorni.
Alex ha remato per 9364 miglia nautiche, pari a 17342 chilometri.
Italian rower Alex Bellini kisses his wife Francesca nearly 10 months ago on 21 February 2008 before rowing out of Callao on the Peruvian coast of South America bound for Australia.
From Aug 21 till Sept 21 Alex only managed to row (drift?) 720 nm, an average speed of about 1 knot.
Maud Fontenoy averaged over 2 knots on her 72 day half pacific row ...
"Across thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean Alex rowing boat kept him safe and sound for nearly 10 months" ... Robert"ed ogni giorno che passavo in barca sentivo di procurarmi solo del male." ... Alex ... read Alex last log entry"Perhaps after 10 months at sea writing thousands of words into ones Facebook like log the line between reality and imagination can become blurred?" ... Robert
Remember Alex because we have your previous positions, the ocean
current data and the surface winds it is not difficult to deduce
if you start to use a propulsion enhancing device.
If you should be tempted to use such a device you will be
considered to have abandoned your row to Australia.
If you want to use your sleeping bag between 2 oars etc to reach
a coast because you are running out of food etc and don't want
to initiate an emergency response to be rescued that is
commendable. Just let people know you have abandoned your row.
Alex, you should remember that if you take what I consider to be the unjustified risk of rowing to Sydney, perhaps to boost your own ego or whatever,
when you make that emergency call to be picked up, the Australian rescue services have no option but to respond and have you plucked out of the Pacific Ocean.
The rescue will be very expensive and possibly put the lives of the rescuers in jeapody.
Do you really want to inflict this unnecessary burden on the people of Australia when the much less risky option of rowing to Bundaberg is available to you?
ALEX BELLINI AND HIS ROUTING TEAM HAVE APPARENTLY DECIDED TO PASS UP THE SENSIBLE OPTIONS OF ROWING TO BRISBANE OR BUNDABERG ...
ALEX HAS NOW CROSSED THE POINT OF NO RETURN ON HIS WAY SOUTH INTO CONDITIONS HE HAS NO EXPERIENCE OF HANDLING.
Remember Alex can only ROW WITH THE WIND NOT AGAINST IT and be moved by the ocean currents and waves ...
Try paddling your 20KG surf ski against a 25 knot breeze, Alex rowing boat weighs hundreds of kilograms
and has huge windage, he can only blow with the wind and use his rudder to steer down wind. The oars are just
for exercise!
"I've lost confidence in my equipment as well as myself. It's not pleasant but, its obvious. Without wind, one goes nowhere," ... Anne (What! NO OARS? ...Robert)
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — A French adventurer was plucked from the Pacific Thursday after abandoning her bid to cross the vast ocean in a tiny kite-powered vessel, her team said in a statement.
Anne Quemere, who announced she was scrapping her trans-Pacific odyssey on Wednesday after failing to make any progress in the Doldrums, was picked up by a passing container ship, the statement said.
(It was not just a lack of wind, the mechanism that deployed her kite sail failed when Anne was caught unprepared by a strong gust of wind
from a storm in the ITCZ. Anne was unable to fix the damage well enough to continue her voyage.
The "Doldroms" are not in a fixed position, Anne would have got wind if she had waited, after all she did sail to where she was becalmed! Robert)
The intrepid sailor will arrive in Panama on Saturday before heading back to France with her father.
Quemere, 42, the only woman to have rowed solo across the Atlantic Ocean in both directions without assistance, had been bidding to steer her 5.5-meter (18 foot) vessel some 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) from to French Polynesia.
(Anne rowed the Atlantic in both directions and kite sailed the Atlantic, she was sailing into a region of calm areas, and she didn't have her boat rigged for rowing!!! The Vikings were better prepared, and they voyaged with their mates like the Polynesians ... Robert)
She had left San Francisco on November 4 and had traveled some 3,500 kilometers, her team said. (Anne was half way to Tahiti ... Robert)
I wrote to the Ocean rowing society when I first heard that Anne was going to kite sail from San Fransisco to Tahiti, and advised that since her kite boat could not sail upwind it was a pretty risky venture and she would have been better
to try sailing from Peru to New Caledonia, which would have been a very fast trip down the SE trade winds, and would have shown what you can do in a kite boat given the right conditions.
It turned out that it would have been possible to cross the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone where the SE trades meet the NE trades and the wet air rises creating massive thunderstorms if she had crossed the ITCZ further west. But that would have meant she could not make Tahiti.
So what! Anne had plenty of food and was making very good time, she could have made plenty of Islands west of Tahiti in the South Pacific ... Robert)
ANNE SETS SAIL INTO THE WILD BLUE YONDER, PITY ABOUT THE WIND ...
Anne's kite boat OceanKite can't sail in calm winds early and clean
so she may sail out to sea on Tuesday then end up floundering around with too little wind to sail on Wednesday and Thursday. Click HERE for Anne's website in English.
If Anne Quéméré had even glanced at the local surf forecast she could have saved herself the grief of 2 false starts!
Crossing the Doldrums between the NE & SE tradewinds could be an albatross around Anne's neck. Oceankite should be rigged for rowing as well as kite sailing!
right click KML & click save target as for kml file to open in Google Earth.
5 Day Northern California Surf Forecast
Effective Tuesday 11/4 Smaller windswell for a while:
Tuesday northwest windswell continues at 1-2 ft overhead with northwest winds 10-15 kts early and chopped conditions.
Wednesday northwest windswell fades from shoulder high early with calm winds early and clean conditions.
Thursday chest to shoulder high northwest windswell continues with northeast winds 5 kts early and glassy conditions early.
Friday northwest windswell forecast at chest to shoulder high again with north winds early to 5+ kts and moderately textured conditions.
Saturday more head high northwest windswell forecast with northwest winds 5-10 kts early and nearly chopped conditions.
CLICK HERE FOR LATEST SURF FORECAST & SURFCAMS ...
!!!USE LOCAL WEATHER FORECASTERS SMARTY PANTS FRENCH CHICK!!!
GET DOWN AND DIRTY!!!
OK guys, like me you are probably really pissed off by the lack of news and behind the scenes gossip on websites such as Anne Quéméré's?
What's it really like in a small boat out on the unpredictable often wild and frightening ocean for months at a time with no home comforts.
One lady who let us see beneath the perfectly manicured lawns of their paranoid sponsors (Cross my lawn and I'll stick my pilum up your sternum as the Engishman said to the Invading Roman in Asterix and Obelix) was Roz Savage.
Good on you Roz, let it all hang out, we want to know what it's really like out there up close and uncomfortable.
That was an "easy" tradewind row, note how Roz was so tired and confused she messed up "got to keep rowing to keep going".
Maud fontenoy capsized 15 times at night in a full North Atlantic gale, water came in the vents and waterlogged the cabin which was strewn with soggy equipment and food, she lost her sliding seat, but she toughed it out and survived.
But where's the video?Howard Croker of Taree please note, make special oars with stronger shafts for Ocean rowers, see Croker logo on the broken oars!
SPONSORS! if you want exposure, expose your sponsored ...
"Et voila! Everything comes to those who wait, and this time it's us!
Jean-François Bonnin and I have been pouring over the weather data and a window of opportunity will open mid week.
It's now action stations for the team to finalize preparations for the voyage.
Don't forget the nutella (ok, so it's peanut butter & chocolate:) & savour my last few hot showers ...
Now it's up to me to play my part ... the kites are tuned, the boat is ready.
I am feeling relatively calm because I know I am surrounded by a
strong team who will look after me as they have so far.
I would like especially to thank Peter, Ronan,
Claire, Jeff and Emma who have not hesitated to put themselves at my disposal.
Not forgetting the organisers and members of the Corinthian
Yacht club who have made the club a home from home and done everything to facilitate our stay.
San Francisco will certainly be a highlight of this challenge."
"OceanKite was unloaded from its container by Jim Leech surrounded by the super efficient team of Andersons of Sausalito. In just half an hour my boat was out of the container before being loaded on a cradle, and barely an hour later the bottom of OceanKite was being sanded down to take two layers of antifouling which should prevent the invasion of colonies of barnacles and avoid my having to
go splash in the middle of the Pacific to scrape the hull.
Everything went smoothly and we were all speechless on arriving at the hotel. You don't need to tell me we're in America! It is here for all of us to see.
But this is not the time to get used to be being treated like a princess! Soon I will change back into Cinderella, all on my own, without a living soul for miles around."
Below, Anne Quéméré conducts sea trials of OceanKite on San Francisco Bay, passing Alcatraz Island, “The Rock”, a former federal prison that housed Al Capone amongst other evil doers but now open to the public ...
Maud animera une chronique sur l'écologie et la sauvegarde de l'environnement. Au menu : la protection des ours polaires en Arctique. La navigatrice promet des surprises...
WATCH MICHEL DRUCKER SHOW ON FRANCE 2 AT 19:05 EACH SUNDAY . . . .
Current time in Paris -
Below: Turtle found dead floating in shallow water with no obvious physical injuries in Rose Bay, Bowen, Queensland, Australia.
MESSAGE TO KRAFT FOODS
Genetic engineering is in it's infancy, lets keep it in the lab and not on the table. There is more
to life than A-G-C-T just as there is more to literature than A-B-C...Z
Would you take a young kid
who is just bowing his first notes on a violin, give him a Stradivarius and put him on stage at the
Sydney Opera House to play Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major? ( D-E-F#-G-A-B-C# ) . . . Robert
. . . LINK
USA Order 81: Under
this mandate, Iraq's commercial farmers must now buy "registered
seeds." These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the
World Wide Wheat Company. Unfortunately, these registered seeds
are "terminator" seeds, meaning "sterile...
One would think that Iraqi farmers, now prospering under "freedom" and "democracy," would be able to plant the seeds of their choosing, but that choice, under little-known Order 81, would be illegal.
But first, it is important to set the context. Most people have never heard of the infamous "100 Orders," but they help explain why the majority of Iraqis remain opposed to foreign occupation. The 100 Orders allow multinational corporations to basically privatize an entire nation, and this degree of foreign and private control has not been witnessed since the days of the British East India Company and its extraterritoriality treaties.
A few examples of the 100 Orders are illuminating:
Order 39 allows for the tax-free remittance of all corporate profits.
Order 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, immunity from Iraq's laws.
Orders 57 and 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector general in every government ministry, with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations. (1)
Back to one of the most blatant orders of all: Order 81. Under this mandate, Iraq's commercial farmers must now buy "registered seeds." These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the World Wide Wheat Company. Unfortunately, these registered seeds are "terminator" seeds, meaning "sterile." Imagine if all human men were infertile, and in order to reproduce women needed to buy sperm cells at a sperm bank. In agricultural terms, terminator seeds represent the same kind of sterility.
"Today I challenge our nation to commit to
producing 100 percent of our electricity from
renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free
sources within 10 years."
"Our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based
fuels is at the core of all three of [our]
challenges -- the economic, environmental and
national security crises."
Gaza (Reuters) A Palestinian-designed electric car drew admiring stares on Tuesday from Gazans forced to use cooking oil to power their cars because of a fuel shortage.
"At first people laughed, saying it would not work, now people are begging us to convert their cars," said Fayez Amman.
Working with fellow electrical engineer Wasim al-Khuzundar, Amman hooked up a motor to 32 batteries.
Driving their small car through the streets of Gaza City, they said the vehicle could travel up to 200 km (120 miles) on a single charge.
Israel has reduced the amount of fuel it pumps into the Gaza Strip, local fuel distributors have been on strike in protest at the Israeli cutbacks, forcing the closure of many petrol stations.
Some motorists have turned to cooking gas and cooking oil to power their cars.
"The lack of fuel, the bad smell of cooking oil and the continued siege motivated us to enhance the work until we were successful and made the car operational," Annan said.
He put the cost of the project at US$2,500 but said the price of converting a car to electric power would depend on its size
coconet2.3gp 5MB 5min 176x144 video for your phone ... right click HERE and left click "save target as"
(Creator retains copyright, see YouTube above for details)
!ALEX DID NOT ROW TO SYDNEY! contrary the impression you may get from a stage managed YouTube 
MESSAGE TO KRAFT FOODS
USA Order 81: Under
this mandate, Iraq's commercial farmers must now buy "registered
seeds." These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the
World Wide Wheat Company. Unfortunately, these registered seeds
are "terminator" seeds, meaning "sterile...
Gaza (Reuters) A Palestinian-designed electric car drew admiring stares on Tuesday from Gazans forced to use cooking oil to power their cars because of a fuel shortage.
