Ms Geoffroy does a better job with her voyage through history, though when she comes to the present she is less convincing.

ECONOMIST: Two nations with a common language

Founded in 1973, Cloud Gate (it gets its name from China's oldest dance, dating back 5, 000 years) is on a nonstop voyage through world cultures, fusing tai chi, meditation, Chinese opera, modern dance and ballet into an art form that has captivated international audiences.

CNN: ASIANOW - Asiaweek

But for the 40-year-old skipper, whose youth was spent wading through pages of adventure books, the voyage was also a fruition of boyhood aspirations.

CNN: $16m solar boat sails into record books

He says it was clearly a carefully planned operation and the crew were pleased to have come through the most difficult stage of the voyage without incident.

BBC: USS Abraham Lincoln in Strait of Hormuz voyage

's ill-fated 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage: a British voyage that set out to establish a sailing route through the Arctic and ended with the untimely, mysterious deaths of its two ship crews.

ENGADGET: University of Victoria's Mano underwater robot to prowl Arctic waters for legendary ships

If it cost no more to sail through the Arctic than anywhere else, yes: the savings per voyage would be huge.

ECONOMIST: A meltdown tinged with acid

In the meantime Captain Cook had embarked on his second voyage of discovery with a copy of H4, which he referred to as "our faithful guide through all the vicissitudes of climates".

BBC: Longitude clock comes alive

Through artistic performance involving music, sculpture and dance, supported by pyrotechnics, the audience was invited to a worldwide voyage to India with an Indian dance workshop and to Europe with masterfully interpretations of Verdi, Rossini and Mozart, played by a duet Ali and Stephanie Balthazard Lachaise.

UNESCO: MEDIA SERVICES