Author: timzimmermann

Lost Wetass Hall of Fame–Gertrude Ederle: Who? Gertrude Ederle, first woman to swim the English Channel? Ok, I admit I never heard of Gertie either. But she died last week at the age of 98, so she deserves some respect. Particularly since back in her day–the 1920s, if you can believe it–she was a superstar. Our Gertrude was quite the fish. In 1924 she won a gold medal at the Paris Olympics. But it wasn’t until 2 years later, when she swam from Cape Gris-Nez, France to Kingsdown, England in 14 and half hours, that she became a Lady Lindbergh. Ederle not only became the first woman to swim the Channel, she did it–lubed up with vaseline and olive oil–through stinging jellyfish, 15-foot waves and fast currents. She actually had to cover about 35 miles, and still she beat the existing man-set record by two hours, in part because she refused to use the ladies’ stroke of the day–the breast stroke–and struck out using the shockingly mannish crawl. By her count she made 21,700 strokes to get the job done. When she was through, President Calvin Coolidge called her “America’s Best Girl” and she went home to a ticker tape parade watched by 2 million. Nice going, Gertrude. We’ll miss you…well, if we actually knew you, we would.



Unexpected Pre-Swim Problem #1: “Enough grease already. This dog is about to have my ass for lunch!”

Annals of Adventure–White Death: The equation is simple: more people are heading to the mountains and to the backcountry so more people are suffering death by avalanche (same thing with the shark attack mania of recent years: sharks aren’t getting hungrier, there are simply more people in the water (and a voracious media to broadcast every, umm, shred of detail)). That’s one of the conclusions of an LA Times story that takes you moment by moment through the avalanche experience of a group of skiers in Canada’s British Columbia as it crunches avalanche numbers:

“In the 1950s, fewer than five people a year died in U.S. avalanches. Over the past half a decade, that average has risen dramatically, to 30 deaths a year. Internationally, there were 143 avalanche fatalities last year. Many trace the increase to new technologies that make it easier to pursue challenging peaks. “Changes in ski design, snowshoes and, particularly, snowmobiles let people climb stuff that couldn’t be touched years ago,” says Knox Williams, director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. “Now people can expose themselves to more risk.”

The mounting death toll may also be driven by new attitudes about risk. Extreme sports have become part of mainstream America’s recreational vocabulary. From 1985 to 1990, avalanches killed only three snowmobile riders in the U.S. In the last five years, 79 snowmobilers died in snowslides, as technology and bravado have pushed humans deeper into nature’s maw. And pros are not exempt. In 1999, an avalanche in Tibet killed Alex Lowe, one of the nation’s savviest climbers.”

Putting aside the fact that TWC has a hard time getting worked up about snowmobile fatalities (are they God’s way of showing that He doesn’t like loud, polluting machines?), these numbers are as they should be. New technologies, like an avalanche airbag system (you fire it off when you are caught in a slide and balloons will help keep you on the surface of the snow), can help reduce fatalities. But the mountains are mountains because they are remote, merciless and unpredictable. And extreme sports are interesting, and addicting, because there is risk. There’s no accomplishment, no sense of achievement, when nothing is on the line. So don’t head out to the backcountry, or start bragging at your Christmas party about the helicopter ski trip you are about to take, if you think it is just like any other recreational sport. It’s not. You could end up buried in tons of snow. And if you do you had better act–or be rescued–quickly. From the story: “Studies show that if a victim is uncovered within 15 minutes of burial, he or she has a 92% chance of survival. After 35 minutes, however, the odds drop to 30%. After a little more than two hours, only 3% of avalanche victims are found alive.” Read the whole thing. It’s worth the time……



“Holy shit, Harry! This wasn’t in the brochure….”

(Photo: National Snow and Ice Data Center)

Annals of Investigation–Smokey’s A Couch Potato: Bears may resent human intrusion into their habitat, but living among humans makes for a pretty cushy ursine existence. A recent study (second item) conducted by the Journal of Zoology compared black bears that live in wilderness areas to black bears that live near urban areas. The findings: urban bears are getting fat and lazy because it’s so easy for them to find food. Sure, every once in a while an urban bear makes the mistake of eating a dog or mauling someone mowing the lawn, and unholy hell ensues, with lots of shooting. But on the whole living around homo sapiens means a practically unlimited smorgasbord of human garbage. The abundance of vittles means the bears do less work to find more calories, so they are about 30 percent fatter than their hungrier wilderness bear-brothers and get to laze around an extra 5 hours or so a day. What will PETA have to say about this? Will there be bear class action suits against McDonalds?



“You mean I gotta work for my dinner while those bastards in town eat Big Macs and sit around watching cable?!”

“Right Way” Joyon Update–Into The South: Francis Joyon is kicking ass, as he attempts to break the solo, non-stop round-the-world (RTW) record in his trimaran IDEC. Today he will cross the Equator, going from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere in just 9 days. That’s faster than IDEC–then Sport Elec–did it in 1997, when she sailed with a full crew and set the outright RTW record. It’s also 4 days quicker than Michel Desjoyeaux when he set the current non-stop solo record of 93 days (in a monohull) in 2001. Joyon now has to work his way around the South Atlantic High, a big bubble of light air that parks in the middle of the South Atlantic, before getting down into the Roaring Forties and the Southern Ocean. That’s where this record attempt is going to get really hairy……



“This is a piece of cake. Hmmm, that reminds me. I wonder where I stowed the croissant……”

Woodvale Atlantic Row Update–Holiday Shoppe Home for the Holidays: A Kiwi team paddled their way across the finish line in Barbados over the weekend, to set a new record for the race of 40 days, 5 hours and 31 minutes (and beating the old record by about 21 hours). It almost didn’t happen. As Kevin Biggar and James Fitzgerald closed on Barbados, after rowing all the way from the Canary Islands, Holiday Shoppe Challenge was capsized by a wave when their steering rudder jammed and they got rolled by a wave. The capsize tossed the two rowers into the sea, and neither was wearing a harness. Luckily, they were not separated from the boat, which rolled back upright as it was designed to do. A second Kiwi team also crossed the finish ahead of the previous race record (what do they feed those guys Down Under?), and the rest of the rowing teams will dribble in on the coming week. This is the first transatlantic rowing race I have ever paid any attention to and I have to say it was pretty damn boring. There’s just not that much to recommend the sport: no great speeds, no horrific weather (at least in the tropical Atlantic in November), and no real drama. That’s not to say that it’s not a great achievement for the rowers, and it’s certainly gripping for the families and close supporters of the people out there. But it’s all about endurance, determination, suffering, blah, blah, blah. It’s much more interesting to follow a guy like Jim Shekhdar, who in attempting to row the Southern Ocean was thinking big and thinking crazy…..



Nice job, guys. Can I get back to my nap now?

(Photo: Challenge Business)

Annals of Record Breaking–The Need For Speed: In the world of sail power the magic number is 50–50 knots (almost 60 mph). That’s the sailing equivalent of the sound barrier and no sail powered vessel–either windsurfer or hi-tech purpose built multihull–has ever gone past it. The world record, set in 1993, by an otherworldly machine called “Yellow Pages Endeavour” stands at 46.52 knots. But the cool thing about this record is that it gets traded back and forth between the sailors and the windsurfers. And right now a pack of windsurfers are making a concerted effort to steal it back. The venue is in the south of France, a 1100 meter canal that is just 15 meters wide and perfectly designed for speed runs (because even when the wind blows hard the canal keeps the water flat). To take the record the windsurfers have to average more than 46.52 over a distance of 500 meters in the French Trench, and this past weekend two of them managed 45 knots in winds blowing 30, gusting to 40. Top speeds were probably close to 47-48 knots, which must seem insane on a windsurfer. One of them, Finian Maynard, describes the experience:

“The second 45-knot run felt the best and was the best. I got a solid gust at the start, a small wind-shadow in the middle and another solid gust at the finish. It felt like my gear was not even touching the water. It was sensational and I’ll never forget it. I think that it is within reason to think that YP can be broken for sure. If we can get a more usual record day with 40 knots and gusts to 45-48 knots, then YP will go down. Taking from my experience now, I think that getting to 50 knots might be harder than we all think. Time will tell.”

There are a bunch of windsurfers and sailing teams out there that are gunning for the record this year, so TWC will keep you posted….



The Current Champ: Crazy, no?

Shekhdar Southern Ocean Row PPS–Jim’s Thinkin’ Crazy I guess you have to be pretty stubborn and determined to row across oceans. So maybe it is no surprise that Jim Shekhdar, still on his way back with his boat to New Zealand aboard a rescue ship, is already talking about another attempt to row to South Africa. One hitch: apparently the New Zealand maritime authorities are tempted to ban Jim from rowing off into danger again. But you can’t keep a crazy man down:

“My world at present seems to be a constant procession of quotations and supportive thoughts – the benefit of being totally isolated from the reality of the mainland – I have heard that there is some pressure on the MSA not to allow me to go again – even if I decide I want to! A meeting is set for whenever I get back – before I left however I had been surprised how positive the media and authorities had been and am hopeful that I will be able to convince them that this effort and any future effort – if it happens – will have a much better than evens chance of success – I said before I left 98% survival and 80% chance of success – I guess the 5/1 odds sometime pay!!! I would hope with the current level of ‘experience’ I can improve the odds for any future attempt – mine or someone else’s!”

If he goes again I’m tempted to nominate him for the Dumbass Hall of Fame….unless he finally pulls it off, of course.



Shekhdar Rescue and Cracked Noggin: Uhhh, Jim, remember this?……..

(Photos: Shekhdar via ExplorersWeb)

Annals of Alaska–The Hell With Selling Cookies!: While girl scouts in the lower 48 conduct bake sales and go door-to-door, the tough little ladies up in Alaska have other things to do–such as trapping and skinning beavers. The thirteen girls of Troop 34, aged 10-12, are preparing their traps, sharpening their knives and fending off the outraged cries of animal rights activists. The bureaucrats at Alaska Fish & Game consider the large beaver population a problem, because the beavers are doing what beavers naturally do: build dens and dam waterways, which on occasion causes rivers and stream to flood beyond their banks (Oh, no!). Some anti-beaverites also claim that the beavers and their dams are contributing to excessively warm winters (Huh?). Anyhow, the geniuses at Fish and Game decided they’d get children to do their dirty work, and created a “Take a Kid Trapping” program so schoolkids could get their hands bloody and learn the realities of living in the wild. PETA and the usual suspects are raising a big hue and cry over the program. As for the girls, they are planning to tan the hides to make mittens and thumbing through beaver meat recipes…..



Will PETA-Pammy Get Involved?: Pam Anderson, beaver…Don’t get me started, but it will be a caption writer’s dream come true

Maeghan Carney Ski Everest Postcript–The Snow Sucked: Maegan Carney has posted an explanation of why she gave up on her plan to ski Everest, while Wally Berg and others stuck around to try and summit:

“As those of you know who followed our expedition, I made it to Camp 3 (23,600ft/7,200m) twice but decided it was unsafe to ski Everest this season. When we first arrived in base camp, the skiing conditions were great but the monsoons kept us pinned down low. Then we had to wait out a week of huge avalanches. The window of clear skies and low winds was incredibly short this autumn and by the time our Sherpas had cleared a route through to the South Col, the jet stream was resting on our summit. Painfully, I watched the snow blow off the 5,000ft/1,500m Lhotse face and expose the very old, gray ice of the glacier.

When I was at Camp 3 on October 21st I thought it remained skiable because I could see a route through the ice that still held snow. Unfortunately, the winds were gusting at 60 mph (100k/h) and after a sleepless night we retreated back to base camp in hopes of a break. The winds roared even harder the next day, further stripping my coveted snow, then we had a freak storm that dumped one meter of snow at Camp 2. The winds continued unabated and I knew it was no longer safe for me to ski; the majority of my descent route would have been wind slab snow over ice, essentially a recipe for avalanches.”

Well, okay. It’s hard to second guess someone when their life is on the line. Hope she tries again…….



“I didn’t wimp out….I swear!”

“Wrong Way” VDH Update–Livin’ Large: Sailing around the world into prevailing winds isn’t always sheer hell. Right now VDH is enjoying fine sailing in the southeast tradewinds, off Brazil, and has time to turn his attention to one of the top obsessions of any offshore sailor: food. Here are a few notes from his logbook:

“While doing my tour of the deck this morning, I found a huge flying fish 32 cm long. It looked like a big mackerel, and it will be going in the pot, even if it has to be cut up to fit in it! It will be accompanied with some real potatoes and I’ll have a glass of white Jongieux with it. I couldn’t stop myself from sending you a photo of the creature, which is bigger than my plate!…[and later on] Today, I shall be eating my last piece of bread from Les Sables d’Olonne. After three weeks, it is a little tough, but still very good, and I regret not bringing more than six of them. I still have some fresh produce left: potatoes, onions, carrots, apples, grapefruit and especially, plenty of oranges. I’ve finished reading «Moon Valley», the Jack London novel and am just going to make a start on «Eleven minutes», a book by the Brazilian, Paulo Coelho. The cover notes say that it begins in Rio De Janeiro… It’s just the right moment!”

Almost makes sailing around the world non-stop sound like fun. Well, VDH should enjoy himself while he can. In a few weeks he’ll be around Cape Horn, freezing his ass off, and cursing the day he decided to set off again…..



Nice Belly, VDH. It will be interesting to see what it looks like in 2 months…..