Rowing the Pond Again

Gudlyf writes "Anne Quéméré, a French woman who had previously rowed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain to the West Indian island of Guadeloupe, is currently on her way to doing it again, only this time in the opposite direction. This season's challenge will take Anne 2700 nautical miles, from Chatham, Cape Cod (USA) to Brittany (France), her native land. She hopes to make it in less than 90 days. Is it just me, or does the giant fish on her boat scream 'shark bait' to you?"

Comments

Uh, no...

[Gnea]

sharks are attracted to blood, they cannot 'see' a fish like that on the side of a boat.

Re:Uh, no...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually sharks CAN see prey... that is why they often mistake divers and surfers in dark wetsuits for seals. They do have bad eyesight but can certainly see and identify prey.

Re:Uh, no...

[nomadic]

They're attracted to shapes too, which is why surfers get hit all the time. But you're right, the shark probably won't see the painted fish.

Re:Uh, no...

[Dhalka226]

You mean that the 55 unprovoked shark attacks in 2003 (source) weren't dangerous?

Re:Uh, no...

[Anonymous Coward]

32,480 highway deaths vs. 55 shark attacks? How "significant" _are_ the shark attacks? It appears that in Florida the shark attacks actually _are_ significant - bear with me while I do some ball-park estimating.

Rough Facts:
(1) There are approximately 16 million people in Florida.
(2) 31 of the 55 shark attacks were in florida (see grandparent post).
(3) In 2002 there were 3132 highway deaths in Florida. (source)
(4)The average american adult spends 101 minutes per day driving.(source)
(5)The average american spends 19 minutes per day engaged in "leisure exercise.(source)
*for our purposes, lets pretend that (4) and (5) apply to the population of Florida as well.

Approximations/Guesses:
Let's pretend that in Florida 5% of the leisure exercise that goes on is swimming, and that a 20% of that swimming is done in the ocean as opposed to pools, lakes, etc.
Assumptions:
(6) 1/20 of all leisure exercise in Florida is swimming.
(7) 1/5 of all swimming is done in the ocean (shark territory).

With a Little Algebra,
Using (1),(3), and (4),
There are about 5.3e-9 (5.3*10^-9) deaths per driving minute in Florida. Or inversely 188 million minutes of driving time occur per highway death.

Using (1),(2),(5),(6), and (7),
There are about 2.8e-08 shark attacks per ocean-swimming minute. Or inversely 36 million minutes of ocean-swimming time occur per shark attack.

But wait! That means per minute of activity, in Florida, you are more likely to be attacked by a shark than die in a highway accident, if the facts, assumptions, and generalizations used are correct.

Alright so that sounds impossible - let's change our guesses. What if 20% of all leisure exercise is swimming (a ridiculously high estimate), and what if a full 1/2 of all swimming is done in the ocean. Then by the same calculations there are 2.8e-9 deaths per ocean-swimming minute. Even with these very high estimates the per-minute chances of shark attack are within a single order of magnitude to highway deaths.

Yes, I have made some unsupported generalizations and some unsupported guesses, but even so I think it is safe to say that in florida the statistics are so "lopsided" (32,480 highway deaths vs. 31 shark attacks) not because swimming is any less dangerous than driving (in terms of shark attacks vs. fatal accidents), but because people just drive a whole lot more than they swim.

More Images

[nmb3000]

Got curious and browsed that images (images directory. Some odd stuff, but there's also a small map showing (at least vaguely) the intended journey.

Re:Nerdly?

[The Slashdotted]

Geek n.
A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.
A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.

But then it could also be:
A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.
I mean how many times do you see "sex with a mare" around here??

Her website

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's her website. It's entirely in French, but you can see pictures of her and the boat on the photo page.

Re:Her website

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you try the British flag?

English Journal

Re:Anne Quéméré = Anchor Mer (Sea)

[Knos]

Brittany has a specific language which is in most part unrelated to french.

The First

[btharris]

Anne Quemere was not the first woman to row across the Atlantic. The first woman (and first American) was Tori Murden in the American Pearl back in 1999:

http://www.adept.net/AmericanPearl/

I think she went the westward direction (Canaries to Carribean) following ocean currents. It was an interesting online event since you could monitor GPS data on the website and she periodically posted messages and photos via satellite. She is now climbing Denali (Mt. McKinley).

Pics

[Xoo]

Here are some more pics of her canoe and a pic of her too :-)

Some better images here

[heretic]

There's an image of her actually rowing the beast , which puts the contraption in human perspective.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Stats...

[festers]

One other thing to keep in mind, which makes shark statics in FL kinda pointless: Any time a shark is involved it has to be counted as an "attack", regardless of how minor the incident was. Scratches and bruises are all considered attacks. So, for example, in 2001 there were 37 shark attacks in FL, but only one was fatal.

I think I'd be more worried about buckling up.