Tall Ships: Third biennial epic around-the-world race of tall ships. The...
...tall ships (a.k.a. "full-rigged ships" or "Class A tall ships") must have at least three masts and be longer than 40 meters. Every two years, the race starts from the registered home harbor of the winner of the last race on the Twentieth of September, the day Ferdinand Magellan set sail for his history-making around-the-world voyage. For the first race and to pay further homage to Mr. Magellan, it must start from the Port of Seville (or, if low bridges over the rivers to Seville cannot accommodate tall ships, the Bay of Cadiz). Ideally, the first race will also be done in the year 2019, the 500th anniversary of the start of Magellan's voyage.
All tall ships must brightly backlight all of their sails at night, regardless if they're out at sea or passing by land. [This way when they do pass by land at night, those along the shore can still see them sail by. In fact, these lit-up ships should be quite an awesome sight to see so no city should feel cheated if these ships, which are naturally trying to win the race, pass through their harbors at night.]
It would also be a good tradition of the race that, during daylight, whenever any "land-lover" fires a cannon as a tall ship passes by, the tall ship returns with its own blast from its signal cannon. [This should liven things up for both people watching the ships pass by their shore and for those on board the ships.]
Each ship must carry at least 200 passengers at all times who cannot double as ship hands, except in emergencies as outlined in the race rules. Passengers are allowed to fire the ship's signal cannon and can be assigned this duty. [Expect this to be on many people's
Bucket List and for them to pay very handsomely to be on board. These paying passengers will very likely make it possible for the ship to afford to participate in the race. Expect this race alone to spur the building of many new tall ships as cruiselines try to keep up with the demand of people wanting to be passengers on these racing ships.] One of the passengers must be a race judge, who naturally pays nothing to be on board or for their room and board.
Each ship must be equipped with a GPS tracker and its real-time location shown on the world map at the race's website. Additionally, each ship must have a 24/7 live-feed satellite webcam that shows the main deck, another that shows the forward view behind the steering wheel (so viewers can see who is currently steering the ship), and both of these feeds shown on the race's official website for that ship.
For the ships to signal to each other and "land-lovers" as to who is the leader and who is in last place after the second day of the race, the aftermost
spanker sail of the leading ship must be blood red and the forwardmost
jib sail of the ship in last place must be medium blue. [This color scheme is based on the
Doppler Effect: objects moving away from you shift to the red end of the color spectrum and objects coming towards you shift to the blue end. So if
Superman with his super vision was on a ship trailing the leader, he would see a very very very very slight red tint to that ship as it pulls away ever so slowly from his ship and if he looked back at the last place ship that is ever so slowly gaining on his ship, he'd see a very very very very slight blue tint to that ship.] Each ship must carry a blood red spanker sail and a medium blue jib sail and then hoist them when they occupy either place in the race. All of the other sails of the ship must be white, unless the ship has won a previous race (see last paragraph). [This will also help spectators on the shore know when the show is just starting and when it is over.]
To help speed along the ships, they can have supply teams fly ahead of them to (or make arrangements with locals at) the before-mentioned ports (except for the
Galapagos Islands) and these teams can ferry supplies to their tall ship AFTER it has left the ports and is over the horizon and out of sight of that port. [This way the people in the ports can see these ships sail as fast as they can through their harbors.] The supply teams can use motorized boats to do the resupply but cannot use the boats to help propel their tall ship. So there is no question that isn't being done, the supply boats cannot tie themselves alongside their tall ship but must rope across all supplies. All garbage on the tall ships must also be transferred across to the supply boats at these times.
Tall ships can have motorized propellers on board but can only use them for emergency situations as outlined in the race rules. Using a motor for a non-emergency results in the immediate disqualification of the tall ship from the race. Each motor must have a way by which the motor can be sealed so that the running of the motor would require the breaking of the seal. After the emergency situation has passed, the on-board race judge must re-seal the motor to prevent non-emergency use from going unnoticed.
As for the race trophy, it should be a bronze bust of Ferdinand Magellan's head. The base of the trophy lists all of the names of the tall ships and their captains which have won the race. The base will be added onto with more base segments as the years pass and more ships and captains win the trophy. The trophy passes along to the next winner and it must be put in a highly-secure public display case in the lobby of a public building next to the home harbor of the winning ship. No money can be charged for seeing the trophy. The trophy is then turned over to the race judges at the start of the next race. Additionally, for every race a tall ship wins, one of its "square" sails (which typically are more rectangular [even more trapezoidal] in shape) can be changed to the color of blood red, starting with the top square sail on the aftermost mast and working down the square sails on that mast and then in similar order down the next mast in front of it and and then the next mast in front of that and so forth. [Needless to say, many a tall ship captain will daydream of sailing his ship with all red sails.]
Future Challenges: 1) First all-female crew to win the race. No males allowed on the ship and this includes not among her passengers as well.
2) First all-senior citizen crew (all over the age of 64 at the start of the race) to win the race. No one under the age of 65 at the start of the race allowed on the ship and this includes its passengers as well.
3) First all-teenage all-girl crew (all older than 12 and younger than 20 at the start of the race) to win the race. This age restriction does NOT apply to its passengers but all passengers must be female. This ship can be run by a private boarding school.
4) First all-teenage all-boy crew (all older than 12 and younger than 20 at the start of the race) to win the race. This age restriction does NOT apply to its passengers but all passengers must be male. This ship can be run by a private boarding school.
5) First all-teenage coed crew (all older than 12 and younger than 20 at the start of the race and there are as many girls of different ages in the crew as there are boys of different ages [e.g., if there are four boys who are 15 years old, there are four girls who are fifteen years old]) to win the race. This age restriction does NOT apply to its passengers. This ship can be run by a private boarding school.
6) First computer-piloted completely-automated tall ship to finish the race. Once the robo-ship has set sail (started the race), if a human helps it at anytime for any reason, it is disqualified from the race. The ship must still have at least 200 human passengers at all times and its creators can be among them BUT, again, none of them can help the ship in any way or manner or the ship is immediately disqualified from the race. If it is an emergency and the humans help the ship, the ship is still disqualified from the race. No exceptions. The passengers can, however, monitor the ship and fire its signal cannon, but that is it. The ship must also automate the feeding of the passengers, cleaning of the ship (including passenger cabins and living quarters), and the resupplying of the ship from supply ships, though human crews can be used for the supply ships. If the ship does not complete the around-the-world voyage (even after disqualified), it cannot participate in the next race but can participate in the races after that. [This is to encourage the owners of disqualified robo-ships to finish the race.]
7) First computer-piloted completely-automated tall ship (same conditions as in Future Challenge #6) to win the race.
8) Third season of a weekly reality show airing on a US broadcast or cable TV network that covers at least five tall ships in the race and airs episodes each week of the race. Due to the biennial nature of the race, this show will only air every other year. The show's camera crew can be counted as passengers.
9) First free ebook murder mystery novel where (all of) the murder(s) takes place on board a racing tall ship after the start of the race and is solved by a passenger on that ship before the race is finished. To win this challenge and befitting an epic race, the novel must be of epic length: at least one million words. It must also be of epic popularity: downloaded at least one million times. [Setting a murder on a racing tall ship will be ideal for a mystery novel. The number of suspects is limited, confined in one place, and are kept together for a long time. Add to this a captain who actually thinks the death(s) was/were an accident, is in complete denial, or might want to pretend the murder(s) was/were an accident so he can continue with the race and you have a great set-up for a murder mystery. Enter the amateur detective and the game is afoot.]
Same as Future Challenge #9 and:
10) The novel wins an Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Mystery Novel of the Year.
11) Is written by someone who has actually been a full-trip passenger on one of the racing tall ships and the novel is released after their voyage and the month before the next race. The novelist signs an affidavit that s/he didn't start physically writing the novel (typing it into their computer) until they were on board the racing tall ship and it had started the race. That and they finished at least the first draft of the novel before the end of the race.
12) Made into a five-part three-hour-per-part TV mini-series premiering on a US broadcast TV network. It premiering all in one week (Sunday-Thursday) and a week before the next race begins.
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