April 3, 2006 – Making Waves

Adventurers vie for distance record
As the saying goes, records were made to be broken, and the current PWC distance record is about to be challenged.
Adventurers Marinus du Plessis and Adriaan Marais plan to start in Anchorage, Alaska, in mid-June and spend the next 90 days in the saddle, touring 13,500 miles of the Americas without the assistance of a support crew. The duo’s planned route will take them down the West Coast, then past Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, through the Panama Canal, and on to Cancun and Miami.
Currently, the proud holders of the record are a team from Australia, who circumnavigated that continent in 2000, logging a distance of about 10,190 miles in 106 days. And yes, they did it with a backup team.
More info on PWC economic impacts
Curious about the statistics quoted in the accompanying National Parks feature? So were we, so we delved a little deeper into the research done by The Trade Partnership, a Washington, D.C.-based economic research firm.
While the total cost of the PWC bans on the U.S. economy is estimated at $2.7 billion over the past nine years, The Trade Partnership states things could get far worse if the bans are not lifted.
According to Partnership president Laura Baughman, the future cost to the U.S. economy will continue at a pace of more than $567 million per year.
The nation’s unemployment ranks also will impacted.
According to the study, employment costs related to the bans and the associated negative publicity averages about 3,300 direct and indirect jobs lost across the United States.
— Jeff Hemmel