Earth:Transpacific crossing
Transpacific crossings are passages of passengers and cargo across the Pacific Ocean between Asia, Australia and the Americas. Cruises offer transpacific crossing which passes through the International Date Line. Commercial transpacific flights have been available since 1935.[1]
History
The first person to cross the Pacific from Asia to the Americas was Francisco Gali who completed this journey in 1584.[2]
The first liners built specially for the transpacific ocean service were the "Empress" vessels of the Canadian Pacific Railway. After the railway reached the Pacific seaboard in 1885, the liners began operation in 1891.[3]
In 1928, Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew were the first to cross the Pacific by flight. Smith and Australian aviator, Charles Ulm, arrived in the United States and began to search for an aircraft. Famed Australian polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins sold them a Fokker F.VII/3m monoplane, which they named the Southern Cross.[4] Ulm was the relief pilot. The other crewmen were United States , they were James Warner, the radio operator, and Captain Harry Lyon, the navigator and engineer.[5]
In 1935, the beginning of commercial transpacific flights to and from California began operation. On November 22, 1935, "Pan American Airlines' China Clipper launched its first transpacific flight, covering a distance of 8,000 miles". The route was ready for passenger service by October 1936.[1]
Between March and April of 2019, blind sailor Matsuhiro Iwamoto of Kearny Mesa and Doug Smith of Japan attempted to sail from San Diego to Fukushima, Japan, by April 24 making Iwamoto the first blind sailor to cross the Pacific non-stop.[6] Iwamoto's first attempt in 2013 failed when his boat hit a whale.[7]
Crime
The crossing has been used for illegal activities including sex trafficking of Chinese women.[8]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Romanowski, David (2014-07-14). "The First Transpacific Passenger Flight". National Air and Space Museum. Archived from the original on 2019-10-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20191019082959/https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/first-transpacific-passenger-flight. Retrieved 2019-10-19.
- ↑ Hubert Howe Bancroft (1912). The new Pacific. The Bancroft Company. pp. 458–. https://archive.org/details/newpacific03bancgoog.
- ↑ E. Mowbray Tate (1986). Transpacific Steam: The Story of Steam Navigation from the Pacific Coast of North America to the Far East and the Antipodes, 1867-1941. Associated University Presses. pp. 146–. ISBN 978-0-8453-4792-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=OuUvlfcIGRQC&pg=PA146.
- ↑ "7.30 report story about Charles Ulm". ABCnet.au. 31 May 1928. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304061014/http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s875609.htm#.
- ↑ Lyon, Harry W. Captain; Kingsford-Smith, Charles Sir, 1897-1935; Warner, James. (Interviewee); 2GB (Radio station : Sydney, N.S.W.) (1958), Reminiscences of flights in the "Southern Cross", http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/12147564, retrieved 2 February 2017
- ↑ Kragen, Paul (2019-03-09). "Blind San Diego sailor making waves in record trans-Pacific crossing". San Diego Union-Tribune. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/san-diego/sd-no-blind-sailor-20190308-story.html.
- ↑ Snaith, Emma (2019-04-20). "Blind Japanese sailor ‘sets record’ in non-stop Pacific voyage". The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/mitsuhiro-iwamoto-blind-pacific-crossing-voyage-japan-san-diego-fukushmia-a8879326.html.
- ↑ Lily Wong (6 February 2018). Transpacific Attachments: Sex Work, Media Networks, and Affective Histories of Chineseness. Columbia University Press. pp. 57–. ISBN 978-0-231-54488-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=lUpBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT57.
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