Fwd: [Rainbow Mansion FUN] A Talk on Sailing and Exploration by Alex Whitworth

[Jade Wang]

Fun stuff going on, fyi. :-)

Jade

Sent from my phone. (Autocomplete may cause frequent elevator steaks.)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Zack Wexler-Beron" <zwexle...@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 22, 2012 11:29 AM
Subject: [Rainbow Mansion FUN] A Talk on Sailing and Exploration by Alex Whitworth
To: <funatr...@googlegroups.com>

Dear Friends of Rainbow Mansion,

You are invited to join us for an informal talk by expert sailor/explorer, Australian, Alex Whitworth on the theme of his experiences with exploration, environmental conservation, and links to Space and Astronauts on the ISS. This event will be held on Tuesday Oct. 23, from  7:30-9:30 PM!  Dinner (vegetarian/humanitarian friendly) will start at 7:30 pm, with the talk at 8:30 pm. 

Alex Whitworth is a Briton living in Australia and a crew member on the ship “Berrimilla”. He will speak on his extensive sailing experiences with opportunities for questions.  Alex has also been a participant in the 2010 Haughton-Mars Project Arctic campaign, a Mars Analog research station in the Canadian High Arctic, managed and operated by the Mars Institute, with support from the SETI Institute

Rainbow Mansion Address: 

21677 Rainbow Drive 

Cupertino, CA 95014 

Google Map Link: http://goo.gl/maps/Zm8Wa 

Parking: Please park on the street past our driveway!

More About Alex Whitworth

Key Highlights of these experiences (from the ship’s website, which is currently under construction http://berrimilla.com/wordpress/) :

 

“ During the two circumnavigations Berrimilla became the first and, as far as we can discover, the only vessel to:

• Sandwich a Fastnet race between 2 consecutive Sydney – Hobarts, all under sail
  
• Sail to England twice to compete in the Fastnet and then return
  
• Sail from Australia to England via the North West Passage
  
• Circumnavigate the world under sail via the North West Passage
  
• Circumnavigate the world via both Cape Horn and the North West Passage. David Scott Cowper did it first, but in different boats.
  

Berrimilla was the 77th vessel to transit the North West Passage since Amundsen’s Gjoa in 1903-6 and her transit was the 114th (some vessels have done more than one).

 (As of December 2011) ”

• While crossing the Southern Ocean towards Cape Horn and later in the South Atlantic, Berrimilla’s nearest neighbors for a short time each day were the crew of the International Space Station, NASA Astronaut Dr.Leroy Chiao and Russian Cosmonaut Colonel Salizhan Sharipov. The ISS was in orbit about 300 km above and the two crews were in contact several times. They recognized the similarity of their situations.
• Berrimilla’s crew were subsequently invited to present their voyage to a symposium of astronauts at Louisiana State University as an analogue for a journey into deep space. At the symposium, Dr. Pascal Lee who runs the Houghton Mars Project camp on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic, drew a map in Alex’ notebook and invited Berrimilla to rendezvous at Beechey Island (74.42N 091.46W) for the total solar eclipse on August 1st 2008.

-The Rainbow Mansion

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