Transpacific crossing

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Transpacific crossings are voyages of passengers and cargo across the Pacific Ocean between Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Transpacific voyages frequently cross the International Date Line. The first recorded crossing of the Pacific was the Magellan-Elcano expedition of 1521. Commercial transpacific flights have been available since 1935. [1]

Contents

History

The Spanish expedition of Magellan-Elcano was the first to cross the Pacific in 1521 and the one to give the ocean its name. After discovering and crossing the Strait of Magellan in November 1520, the expedition sailed northwest across the Pacific for over three months and reached the Philippines in March 1521. Juan Sebastian Elcano would continue the expedition to complete the first world circumnavigation in 1522. The first navigator to cross the Pacific from west to east was Andres de Urdaneta, who discovered the easterly route across the Pacific from the Philippines to Mexico in 1565.

The first transpacific trade route in history was the Spanish Manila galleon route which lasted from 1565 to 1815 and followed navigator Andres de Urdaneta's discovery of the easterly route or tornaviaje in 1565. It ended two and a half centuries later, when most Pacific ports became open to world trade.

Other early transpacific voyages include those of Spanish navigators García Jofre de Loaísa in 1526, Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón in 1527, Alvaro de Mendaña in 1567 and 1595, and Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in 1606. Another early navigator to cross the Pacific from Asia to the Americas was Francisco Gali who completed this journey in 1584. [2]

In the 19th century, 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 Americans, 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 2019, blind sailor Matsuhiro Iwamoto of Japan and Doug Smith of the United States sailed from San Diego, United States 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]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Sebastián Elcano</span> Basque seafarer and circumnavigator

Juan Sebastián Elcano was a Spanish navigator, ship-owner and explorer of Basque origin from Getaria, part of the Crown of Castile when he was born, best known for having completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth in the Spanish ship Victoria on the Magellan expedition to the Spice Islands. He received recognition for his achievement by Charles I of Spain with a coat of arms bearing a globe and the Latin motto Primus circumdedisti me.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geographical exploration</span> Act of traveling and searching for resources or for information about the land or space itself

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Kingsford Smith</span> Australian aviator (1897–1935)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrés de Urdaneta</span> Basque explorer for the Spanish Empire

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João Rodrigues Serrão, also known as Juan Rodríguez Serrano, was a Portuguese and Spanish pilot and explorer. He served in the Portuguese India Armadas that secured control of the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca for the Portuguese but is most well known for his participation in Ferdinand Magellan's 1519–1521 expedition to the Spice Islands for Charles I of Spain, which discovered a path around South America to the Pacific and initiated Spanish involvement in the Philippines. Serrão and Duarte Barbosa became leaders of the expedition after Magellan's death at the Battle of Mactan but did not live to complete the circumnavigation with Elcano. They were both killed shortly thereafter during a massacre of the Spanish by their supposed convert and ally Humabon, raja of Cebu.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magellan expedition</span> 16th-century Spanish maritime expedition

The Magellan-Elcano expedition was a 16th-century Spanish expedition planned and led by Portuguese-born Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan with the initial objective of reaching the Moluccas. The expedition departed from Spain in 1519, and was completed in 1522 by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano after Magellan's death, crossing the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, culminating in the first circumnavigation of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Ulm</span> Australian aviator

Charles Thomas Philippe Ulm was a pioneer Australian aviator. He partnered with Charles Kingsford Smith in achieving a number of aviation firsts, serving as Kingsford Smith's co-pilot on the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand. He and two others disappeared near Hawaii in 1934 while undertaking a test flight for an air service between Australia and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferdinand Magellan</span> Portuguese explorer (1480–1521)

Ferdinand Magellan ( mə-GHEL-ən or mə-JEL-ən; Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, IPA:[fɨɾˈnɐ̃w̃dɨmɐɡɐˈʎɐ̃j̃ʃ]; Spanish: Fernando de Magallanes, IPA:[feɾˈnandoðemaɣaˈjanes]; was a Portuguese explorer best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific Ocean to open a maritime trade route, during which he discovered the interoceanic passage thereafter bearing his name and achieved the first European navigation to Asia via the Pacific.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treaty of Zaragoza</span> 1529 peace treaty between Spain and Portugal

The Treaty of Zaragoza or Saragossa, also called the Capitulation of Zaragoza or Saragossa, was a peace treaty between Castile and Portugal, signed on 22 April 1529 by King John III of Portugal and the Habsburg emperor Charles V in the Aragonese city of Zaragoza. The treaty defined the areas of Castilian and Portuguese influence in Asia in order to resolve the "Moluccas issue", which had arisen because both kingdoms claimed the lucrative Spice Islands for themselves, asserting that they were within their area of influence as specified in 1494 by the Treaty of Tordesillas. The conflict began in 1520, when expeditions from both kingdoms reached the Pacific Ocean, because no agreed meridian of longitude had been established in the far east.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of the Magellan expedition</span> Timeline of the Magellan Expedition, the first circumnavigation

The Magellan expedition was the first voyage around the world in human history. It was a Spanish expedition that sailed from Seville in 1519 under the initial command of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sailor, and completed in 1522 by Spanish Basque navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transpacific flight</span> Flight of an aircraft across the Pacific Ocean

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References

  1. 1 2 Romanowski, David (2014-07-14). "The First Transpacific Passenger Flight". National Air and Space Museum. Archived from the original on 2019-10-19. Retrieved 2019-10-19.
  2. ↑ Hubert Howe Bancroft (1912). The new Pacific. The Bancroft Company. pp.  458–.
  3. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ "7.30 report story about Charles Ulm". ABCnet.au. 31 May 1928. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  5. ↑ 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" , retrieved 2 February 2017{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. ↑ Kragen, Paul (2019-03-09). "Blind San Diego sailor making waves in record trans-Pacific crossing". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  7. ↑ Snaith, Emma (2019-04-20). "Blind Japanese sailor 'sets record' in non-stop Pacific voyage". The Independent. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
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