Desjoyeaux triumphant in Vendee Globe.

After 84 days 3 hours and 9 minutes at sea,  fans came out to welcome home Michel Desjoyeaux in Foncia as the victor in the 2008/2009 Vendee Globe round the world sailing race. During his non-stop around the world voyage he sailed over 28,303.2 nautical miles, at an average of 13.2 knots, allowing Desjoyeaux to grab the top podium place in the Vendée Globe for the second time (he also won in 2001).

Michel Desjoyeaux’s campaign was not an easy one, even for this experienced ocean sailor. After starting the race on November 9th, Foncia sailed just 200 miles before having to return to Les Sables d’Olonne with electrical problems. Undeterred, Michel and the Foncia team quickly fixed the problem, allowing Desjoyeaux to rejoin the race on November 11th. Unfortunately, this put Desjoyeaux 360 miles behind the race leaders. At one point in the race he was 670 miles behind the race leader, but this did not discourage him. Keeping his cool, Desjoyeaux took his set-back in stride, sailing with the calm and intelligent tactics for which he is known.

One after another, he overtook his competitors to the thrill of the international sailing community and fans new and old.  He managed to pass them all, and eventually took the lead off the coast of Australia. Once he was out in front with the lead, he would not let it go, and kept ahead of the fleet for the remainder of this around the world race.

Desjoyeaux’s long time friend,  Roland Jourdain should arrive in Sao Miguel in the Azores later today, three days after losing his keel bulb.

Armel Le Cléac’h in Brit Air has therefore been able to claim second position and is now only 1,250 miles from the finish at salonne d’Or and is making good speed.

Samantha Davies in Roxy has therefore claimed third place and is a further 1,000 miles behind Le Cleach.

We will keep you posted as to the final rankings but immediately want to add our voice to the thousands to congratulate Michel Desjoyeaux and his team Foncia.

The video below from yachtpals clearly shows the grace of these wonderful yachts but of the 30 who started the race nearly 3 months ago there are only 11 left in this toughest and most extreme of yacht races.

White-water rafting and hiking in the Cotahuasi Canyon

Another extreme location, another extreme vacation…

The Cotahuasi Canyon in southern Peru is the deepest canyon in the world – 3501m or 11,488 ft.  It is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States, but the canyon’s walls are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon.

The  Canyon is covered with unexplored Incan and Wari ruins. In antiquity, this canyon was the most direct route from Cusco to the Pacific and was used by the Inca for trade with the coast. There are many Inca and pre-Inca terraces remaining, and still cultivated, along the less precipitous canyon walls.

Over the years the old Inca trails have deteriorated and now the best way to explore the canyon is by rafting down the class 3-5 rapids that separate the ruins – this will take 6 days.

You can drive down to the village of Cotahuasi, an extreme journey in itself with its torturous switchbacks, but, since we are into extreme sports and extreme vacations – we would prefer to hike down – following old Inca trails where possible. It is about a 10-hr hike down to the bottom of the canyon and be prepared for the heat – 40 degrees at the bottom.

The large network of ancient trails that connect all the villages makes a wide variety of day hikes or multi day loop hikes possible, depending on your interests and style of adventure. There are challenging climbs up steep ridges, craters and 16,000 to 17,000 ft peaks. And then of course, there’s the opportunity of white-water rafting.

Very little was known about this area and even less about the canyon until a kayak/raft expedition first ran it in 1994. It is considered one of the most dangerous rivers in the world with its combination of icy cold waters and Class 5 rapids.

Very few people have rapided this river, which makes it that much more of an extreme vacation and an extreme challenge. The river flows from 12,000 ft in the Andes, West to the Pacific Ocean. The Canyon was the only link between Cusco, the ancient Inca capital, and the Pacific Ocean.

The adrenaline rush experienced during a 6-day Class IV-V white water rafting trip on the rapids of the Cotahuasi River will be an experience indeed – a non-stop, heart pounding descent, through 80 miles of continuous class 4 technical whitewater. The class 5’s are scouted before running them and some are walked around.

An added bonus is that the canyon is a place of great natural beauty. As stated above, it is the deepest canyon in the world and yet, just 24kms (15 miles) to the southeast, the Nevado Ampato, a snow-capped extinct volcano, rises to 6,288m (20,630 ft). It is also home to the endangered Andean Condor.

This challenging expedition encompasses real adventure with the natural wonders and fascinating ancient history of the region. If I have given you any ideas for an extreme vacation – bon voyage!

How to ride a waveboard

Following on from yesterday’s story of the adaptation of the waveboard to enable use on the ice with the blizice blades we thought it would be useful to talk a little more about how to ride a waveboard.

We have found two good videos on YouTube which talk about the sport, how to get started and what can be done on these boards.

This first video is from sweptawaytv and discusses the basic techniques of getting started on the waveboard. This blend of snowboarding, skating and surfing is claimed to have origins from the martial arts. That may be right – certainly symmetry and balance are required; your vision must be toward the horizon, your feet placed symmetrically on the board, your movement of shoulders, torso and hip to create the propulsion required to move the board.

No doubt about it this street surfing is cool and for less than $100 you can get started, further it is great exercise.

The second video is from awesomescreename and is a good, solid guide on how to start on the board, how to get propulsion, how to turn, and how to stop – most important! Finally one or two tricks are demonstarted.

As ever with these extreme sports mishaps do occur so you are advised to wear appropriate protective appendages!

Happy New Year to you All

4 days into the New Year I know, but I couldn’t resist this video. If any of you out there are confused  by the news, please do listen to Uncle Jay explaining last years’ to you… thanks UncleJayExplains for posting this, and again, HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all.

Shark attack – blown out of all proportion

This video which comes from Apexpredator11 and was posted in December 2006, sometime ago now, but it made us think of what the statistics are for shark attacks on surfers. Here we should add the word ‘reported’ and this is what we found.

From the Times on line ‘ Last year the only fatal attack was in New Caledonia, in the southwest Pacific, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s international shark attack file.

There were 71 other reported attacks worldwide last year, up from 63 in 2006. Attacks on the Atlantic coast, particularly in Florida, are far more common than they are on the Pacific coast.

A study by the Harvard Centre for Risk Analysis showed that a person’s chances of being killed by a shark in any given year are about 1 in 280 million, compared with a 1 in 6,700 chance of being killed in a car accident.

This means you would have to swim in the ocean 112 times a day for it to become as dangerous as making a single car journey to the supermarket. ‘

As you are no doubt aware there are only four species of shark that are considered to be dangerous: the Great White shark, the Oceanic Whitetip shark, the Bull shark and the Tiger shark. Further research will quickly reveal that the Great White – the most feared of all the sharks, will ‘not deliberately hunt humans for food’.

While sharks kill fewer than 20 people a year, their own numbers suffer greatly at human hands. Between 20 and 100 million sharks die each year due to fishing activity, according to data from the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File.

So shark attacks are rare and no doubt often caused by foolish behaviour from an individual  – take for example the Meditterranean where Europe holidays and yes, the Great White has been seen in the Med – some even suggest it is their breeding ground – since 1899  MEDSAF reports (the Mediterranean Shark Attack File) that only some 60 attacks have been reported – no doubt in this respect it is a good thing that the Med does not have any surf!

Believe In Yourself – Wintle and Kipling said it best…

Following our blog last Friday there are two poems which epitomize the search for self-belief. The first, ‘The Man Who Thinks He Can’ by Walter D. Wintle, is probably one of the most recognised poems in the English language. I always thought it was anonymous – and following a little research I found out that many other people did too! However, it has, over time, been attributed to several people (Napoleon Hill and C.W. Longenecker for example), but it seems that Wintle is the most likely source – until some poetic archaeologist digs up an earlier version of the poem.

The Man Who Thinks He Can

If you think you’re beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t,
It’s almost for sure, you won’t.

If you think you’re losing, you’ve lost.
For out in the world we find –
Success begins with a person’s will,
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you’re outclassed, you are,
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You have to stay with it,
In order to win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go,
To the one with the better plan.
For more often than not, you will win,
If only you think you can.

No such controversy over Rudyard Kipling’s poem “IF”… equally inspirational and equally suitable to our earlier discussion on self-confidence.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

Well, there we go…our Monday morning fount of wisdom!

Extreme poker

Its a sport, its extreme and its poker – what next can we come up with?!

thanks to chriscoulson for the video

Believe in yourself

Self belief, believing in yourself, is one of life’s great maxims. You can only ever be truly responsible for your own actions and if you believe in yourself then the world is your oyster.

Check out the video from ExtremeSortsWorld of a number of individuals doing stuff – parkour, gymnastics, martial arts, wushu, tumbling, acrobatics, break dance – that you would not believe to be possible. But for those individuals captured on this video there is one common thread – they possess that self belief.

Seneque is quoted in the video ‘It is not because things are difficult that we don’t dare, its because we don’t dare that things are difficult’, and more from Alfred de Musset, ‘Man is pupil, pain is his teacher’.

And the extraordinary Bruce Lee had this to say about the matter, ‘Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins is the one who thinks (believes) he can’.

That about sums it up, we recommend you watch this video and if ever you find life is getting you down we suggest you look inside of yourself, find yourself and believe in yourself – you can do it,you are an amazing creation – enjoy!

ISDE motocross – another extreme

We have often wondered about the definition of extreme and therefore what can be classified as an extreme sport or Xtreme sport. The dictionary’s suggestion for extreme is ‘situated at the end, farthest from centre; reaching a high or the highest degree’. That will do. Last night we sat down and watched ‘On Any Sunday’ which is Bruce Brown’s story of the legends and generation of US moto cross riders from the 1970s.

Men such as Malcolm Smith, David Evans, Mert Lawwill and of course Steve McQueen talk and demonstrate their skills and daring, and it was whilst watching this documentary that we came to the conclusion that these guys were most definitely situated at the end, farthest from centre; reaching a high or the highest degree. What an unbelievable, incredible, fantastic and extreme activity.

Did you know there are over 4 million Americans who ride motor bikes of some or other description – thats one hell of a lot of people. And to get to the top of that tree you have to be darn good at what you do. In Brown’s opinion Malcolm Smith was the best of his generation and maybe if McQueen hadn’t been in such demand from Hollywood he would have made it to the very top – he was anyway very, very good – the toughest of competitors, a man without fear.

In the documentary Brown shows Smith at what was then called the International Six Day Trial which was then held in Spain and where Smith won, between 1966 and 1976 no less than eight gold medals. That does not mean to say he won the race outright but he completed each stage in the allotted time and without the assistance of any other person to assist with repairs to his bike. Really, really impressive.

We think the rules have changed somewhat since 1966, and indeed since 1913 when the first ‘ISDE’ was held in Carlisle, England, since 1973 the event has been held around the world: from New Zealand to the United States, from Chile to Sweden – and in 2009  the event will be held at the Figueira de Foz in Portugal between October 10th and 17th.

We will visit this subject again and again, we find it brilliant and extreme and watching Smith ride his bike we notice something else. Yes this is extreme but there is something else –  a man (in this case)  at extreme ease and comfort with his medium. To achieve what he achieved, to get to where he got, in his chosen sport, he had to be an artist in that environment. Extreme sports is one thing but to be at the top of your field in extreme sports you also have to be an artist.

In 1966 we don’t think  YouTube was around and so we leave you with ISDE official video of the 2008 event which was held in Greece.

Flight of fancy for those down under

First things first – today is Thanksgiving day in the United States of America so happy Thanksgiving Day to all our US readers – it is a time to give thanks for the harvest, and in general, although this year many Americans will wonder what they should be thankful for. It is also celebrated in Canada, but rather than the 4th Thursday of November the Canadians give thanks on the 2nd Monday of October. And let us not forget the Grenadans, whose Thanksgiving Day is on the 25th October, when they celebrate the removal from office and execution of their Prime Minister Maurice Bishop! Oh well – it takes all sorts, something we should never forget.

And now we turn to Australia – I don’t know about you but its darn cold in the south of France at the moment – snow is forecast – and so we thought it would be good to cheer us up by finding some sunshine – down under here we go, beam me up Scotty!

This sounds fun – have you ever heard of a Tiger Moth? No…..well its an aeroplane – a biplane to be more precise, designed by Geoffrey de Havilland for the Royal Air Force in the 1930s and primarily used as an aircraft for training pilots. It can cruise at about 100mph and is a two seater with an open cockpit – over 8,800 were built and it has been used by airforces in the following countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, India, Persia, Iraq, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Poland, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Spain, Spanish State, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom and Uruguay – they got around a bit as they say.

Well nowadays they are primarily used as air ambulances, aerial advertising, crop dusting, glider tugs and for recreational and aerobatic use. Finally we get there…… for it is this last purpose that would be a lot of fun, kind of extreme, a very nice birthday present perhaps and if you find yourself in Melborne, in the state of Victoria, in southern Australia you have a great opportunity to fly around the city for 30 minutes and even do some gentle loops, rolls and spins – the cost $275 – and I presume thats Aussie dollars.

If you want to find out more go to the companies website which is www.godo.ninemsn.com.au and check it out and watch the video below from schlutorflyer – it makes you want to reach for your goggles, feel the air rush past in the open cockpit, just imagine you are Ralph Fiennes or the beautiful Kristin Scott Thomas – yes this is the plane they used in The English Patient, an extreme classic – have a great Thanksgiving Day wherever you are.