Circumnavigation
The first circumnavigation of the Earth was the Magellan Expedition, which sailed from Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain in 1519 and returned in 1522, after crossing the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
The path of a true (global) circumnavigation forms a continuous loop on the surface of Earth separating two regions of comparable area.
[citation needed] A basic definition of a global circumnavigation would be a route which covers roughly a great circle, and in particular one which passes through at least one pair of points antipodal to each other.
The voyage started in Seville, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and—after several stops—rounded the southern tip of South America, where the expedition named the Strait of Magellan.
Of the 270 crew members who set out from Seville, only 18 were still with the expedition at the end including its surviving captain, the Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano.
A key part of her journey was as a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and Étoile in 1766–1769.
The record was established by six sailors: Francis Joyon, Alex Pella, Clément Surtel, Gwénolé Gahinet, Sébastien Audigane and Bernard Stamm.
[11] For around the world sailing records, there is a rule saying that the length must be at least 21,600 nautical miles calculated along the shortest possible track from the starting port and back that does not cross land and does not go below 63°S.
[13] The solo wind powered circumnavigation record of 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds was established by François Gabart on the maxi-multihull sailing yacht MACIF and completed on 7 December 2017.
The current circumnavigation record in a powered boat of 60 days 23 hours and 49 minutes[15] was established by a voyage of the wave-piercing trimaran Earthrace which was completed on 27 June 2008.
In 1922 Norman Macmillan (RAF officer), Major W T Blake and Geoffrey Malins made an unsuccessful attempt to fly a Daily News-sponsored round-the-world flight.
[16] The first aerial circumnavigation of the planet was flown in 1924 by aviators of the U.S. Army Air Service in a quartet of Douglas World Cruiser biplanes.
The first non-stop aerial circumnavigation of the planet was flown in 1949 by Lucky Lady II, a United States Air Force Boeing B-50 Superfortress.
For powered aviation, the course of a round-the-world record must start and finish at the same point and cross all meridians; the course must be at least 36,770 kilometres (19,850 nmi) long (which is approximately the length of the Tropic of Cancer).
The course must cross all meridians, and must include a set of checkpoints which are all outside of two circles, chosen by the pilot, having radii of 3,335.85 kilometres (2,072.80 mi) and enclosing the poles (though not necessarily centred on them).
[25] However, his journey did not cross the equator or hit the minimum of two antipodal points as stipulated by the rules of Guinness World Records and AdventureStats by Explorersweb.
[26][27][28] People have both bicycled and run around the world, but the oceans have had to be covered by air or sea travel, making the distance shorter than the Guinness guidelines.
It involves crossing the Bering Strait on the ice, and around 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) of roadless swamped or freezing cold areas in Alaska and eastern Russia.
