title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: Sheriff responsibilities in Vermont include furnishing security for fourteen county superior courts and two district courts, serving civil and criminal papers, transportation of prisoners, patrolling towns, motor vehicle and snowmobile enforcement, and furnishing security for special events.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: The position of sheriff is established by the Virginia Constitution, with the sheriff and their deputies having both civil and concurrent criminal jurisdiction countywide. Sheriffs terms are for four years and are not term limited. Unlike other states, the Sheriff is not necessarily the chief law enforcement officer; in a city that has a police department, a Chief of Police has that distinction according to statute. However, a sheriff is chief law enforcement officer in any county. In such areas, the Chief of Police is the highest-ranking officer, such as in incorporated towns or cities.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: Virginia is unique in that the 38 Independent cities are independent jurisdictions and are completely separate from any county. Thus, most cities (with few exceptions such as Poquoson and Franklin) have elected sheriffs, most of which focus on court and jail operations. By law, sheriffs can enforce all the laws of the Commonwealth in the jurisdiction they serve. Some city sheriffs (such as Portsmouth and Newport News) also work alongside the city police in responding to calls and enforcing traffic violations.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: In cities such as Poquoson and Franklin, these cities grew out of a county and still use that county's sheriff for civil process and court services. Those sheriff's offices still have concurrent jurisdiction in those cities but do not generally exercise them, allowing the city police to handle criminal/traffic matters.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: All sheriffs are responsible for civil process, jails, serving levies and holding sheriff's sales to satisfy judgements.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: Since 1983, when the General Assembly passed legislation allowing counties to establish police departments by referendum, only seven counties have done so. In most of those counties, such as Henrico and Chesterfield, the sheriffs offices exercise criminal enforcement authority sharing it with the county police, but generally let the county police investigate most crime.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: The city of Williamsburg incorporated as a city from James City County in 1699. Prior to 1983, the sheriff's office handled all police functions for James City County while a sheriff performed court/jail functions for Williamsburg. When James City County established its county police department, that department operated under the county sheriff for two years before becoming a separate agency. Williamsburg's sheriff's office comprised only 8 personnel, it eventually merged with the county's sheriff's office to form the Williamsburg-James City County Sheriff's office.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: In the early 1990s the General Assembly mandated the uniforms for all sheriffs as being dark brown shirts with tan pants that have a brown stripe. Sheriff's Office vehicles were to be dark brown with a five-point star on the front doors and "Sheriff's Office" on the trunk. The five-point star must have the jurisdiction's name in a half circle on the star and "Sheriff's Office" in a half circle under that.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: In the early first decade of the 21st century, legislation was passed to allow sheriffs to purchase white vehicles (if agreed to by the city or county), and allowing sheriffs' deputies to wear any color uniform the sheriff chose. Sheriffs' vehicles still must have the star on the front doors and markings on the trunk as before.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: The Sheriff's Office, in conjunction with local police departments, assist with controlling traffic, issuing traffic summonses, and working with state and local law-enforcement agencies. Additionally, sheriff's deputies aid the county police, the United States Marshals Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a joint fugitive task force that provides apprehension and arrest of felons who face current warrants. Sheriffs and police also share the responsibility of executing detention orders for those who are ordered to receive mental health care, but if the subject is being transported, frequently the jurisdiction's deputies will conduct the transport.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: There is no distinction made by title, all those who work for a sheriff are deputies. All deputies and police officers must meet state certification standards as set by DCJS (Department of Criminal Justice Services).


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: By law, sheriffs are not elected at the same time. County sheriffs are sworn into office on even-numbered years; city sheriffs are sworn into office on odd-numbered years. All deputies must be re-sworn after each election. Sheriffs have complete authority to hire and fire as they see fit; deputy sheriffs serve at the sole pleasure of the sheriff. Sheriff's offices are completely funded by the state, unless a county or city wishes to supplement with funding.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: In Washington, each sheriff of the thirty-nine counties is an elected official serving a four-year term.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: The voters of Pierce County voted to pass Charter Amendment 1 on November 7, 2006, to change the sheriff's position from appointed to elected. The first sheriff's election in 30 years was held in 2008.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: The sheriff is the chief law-enforcement officer of a county and is empowered to enforce the criminal laws of the State of Washington and the county their office represents, as well as to serve (once the sheriff has received adequate payment for services rendered) or execute civil processes (such as court orders, evictions, property foreclosures, tax warrants) after payment has been made to the civil division of the county sheriff's office ; to maintain county jails; to provide courthouse security; and to provide general law enforcement in unincorporated areas. In many cities, police services are contracted to the sheriff's department in lieu of a city police department.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: The King County Sheriff is the largest sheriff office in the state. The sheriff in this county, however, has no jurisdiction over the King County Jail as it was separated from his or her control.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: In West Virginia, the sheriff of a given county performs two distinct duties. They are the chief law-enforcement officers in the county, although much of this duty is handled by their chief deputies. They are also responsible for the collection of any taxes due to the county. While many sheriffs have a background in professional law enforcement, others are politicians or other local notables. West Virginia sheriffs are limited to two consecutive four-year terms.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: In Wisconsin, sheriff's departments are responsible for law enforcement in towns and villages not large enough to support their own police departments. A sheriff's department may also aid local departments when requested. In Milwaukee County specifically, the sheriff's department is the agency of record for all lettered county trunk highways, the county's freeway system, Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, unincorporated areas, and the county park system.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: The Old Cherokee Nation was divided into seven regional districts, each district had its own tribal sheriff with the High Sheriff of the Cherokee Nation serving as the chief law enforcement officer of the nation. The first High Sheriff of the Cherokee Nation was Sam Sixkiller.


title: Sheriffs in the United States

text: Other important representations of fictional sheriffs have been Collie Entragian ("Desperation" and "The Regulators"), Alan Pangborn in "The Dark Half" and "Needful Things", and Edgler Vess in Dean Koontz's novel, "Intensity".


title: Youth of May

text: Youth of May () is a 2021 South Korean television series starring Lee Do-hyun, Go Min-si, Lee Sang-yi, and Keum Sae-rok. It premiered on KBS2 on May 3, 2021, and aired on every Monday and Tuesday at 21:30 (KST) until June 8, 2021, for 12 episodes. It is an original drama of OTT media service Wavve and is available for streaming on its platform.


title: Youth of May

text: Youth of May is set in the year 1980 during the Gwangju Uprising, follows the love story of medical student Hwang Hee-Tae (Lee Do-hyun) and nurse Kim Myung-Hee (Go Min-si). Rather than focusing on the frontline of the Gwangju Uprising, the drama is about the love and friendships of young people who would’ve had ordinary lives otherwise.


title: Youth of May

text: Hwang Hee-Tae (Lee Do-hyun) becomes the pride of Gwangju when he enters Seoul National University College of Medicine with top marks. His best friend Kyung-Soo, an avid pro-democracy activist, insists they open an illegal clinic for students on the run from the government. One day, a factory worker is injured during a protest. In exchange for the costs of discreetly transporting himself and the factory worker to his hometown, Hee-Tae must go to a meeting with a potential marriage partner arranged by his father. At this meeting, Hee-Tae meets Myung-Hee (Go Min-si), a nurse persevering through the hardships of life. She only agrees to go to this meeting in place of her friend Soo-Ryeon (Keum Sae-rok), because she needs to come up with the airfare to go study in Germany. However, Myung-Hee and Hee-Tae end up falling in love.


title: Youth of May

text: In May 1980, amidst the heated passion and cries for democracy that reverberate throughout Gwangju, Hee-Tae and Myung-Hee find themselves in a twist of fate.


title: Youth of May

text: On October 6, 2020, Lee Do-hyun and Go Min-si's respective agencies announced that they were in talks for the lead roles. They were confirmed to star in the series on December 21, making it their second collaboration after "Sweet Home" (2020), along with Lee Sang-yi and Keum Sae-rok in the roles of siblings. Since the drama is set in Gwangju, most of dialogues are spoken in its dialect.


title: MILF pornography

text: MILF pornography (short for "mother I'd like/love to fuck") is a genre of pornography in which the actresses are usually women ages 30 to 60, though many actresses have started making this type of pornographic film at age 25. Central to the typical MILF narrative is an age-play dynamic of "older women and younger lovers", both males and females. A related term is "cougar", which implies an older woman is acting as a predator.


title: MILF pornography

text: Actresses of the MILF porn genre have their own awards: the XRCO "MILF of the Year Award", the AVN "MILF/Cougar Performer of the Year Award", and the Urban X Award for "Best MILF Performer" among others. In Japan, Adult Broadcasting Awards also has an award for the "Best Mature Actress".


title: MILF pornography

text: In the UK, the term "yummy mummy" is used as well as MILF. Oxford Dictionaries defines a yummy mummy as "an attractive and stylish young mother".


title: MILF pornography

text: The term MILF was first documented in Internet newsgroups during the 1990s. The earliest known online reference is a 1995 Usenet post about a "Playboy" pictorial of attractive mothers. It was popularized by the 1999 film "American Pie" referring to Jennifer Coolidge's character, "Stifler's mom".


title: Q-learning

text: "Q"-learning is a model-free reinforcement learning algorithm to learn the value of an action in a particular state. It does not require a model of the environment (hence "model-free"), and it can handle problems with stochastic transitions and rewards without requiring adaptations.


title: Q-learning

text: For any finite Markov decision process (FMDP), "Q"-learning finds an optimal policy in the sense of maximizing the expected value of the total reward over any and all successive steps, starting from the current state. "Q"-learning can identify an optimal action-selection policy for any given FMDP, given infinite exploration time and a partly-random policy. "Q" refers to the function that the algorithm computes – the expected rewards for an action taken in a given state.


title: Q-learning

text: Reinforcement learning involves an agent, a set of "states" , and a set of "actions" per state. By performing an action formula_1, the agent transitions from state to state. Executing an action in a specific state provides the agent with a "reward" (a numerical score).


title: Q-learning

text: The goal of the agent is to maximize its total reward. It does this by adding the maximum reward attainable from future states to the reward for achieving its current state, effectively influencing the current action by the potential future reward. This potential reward is a weighted sum of expected values of the rewards of all future steps starting from the current state.


title: Q-learning

text: As an example, consider the process of boarding a train, in which the reward is measured by the negative of the total time spent boarding (alternatively, the cost of boarding the train is equal to the boarding time). One strategy is to enter the train door as soon as they open, minimizing the initial wait time for yourself. If the train is crowded, however, then you will have a slow entry after the initial action of entering the door as people are fighting you to depart the train as you attempt to board. The total boarding time, or cost, is then:


title: Q-learning

text: On the next day, by random chance (exploration), you decide to wait and let other people depart first. This initially results in a longer wait time. However, less time is spent fighting the departing passengers. Overall, this path has a higher reward than that of the previous day, since the total boarding time is now:


title: Q-learning

text: Through exploration, despite the initial (patient) action resulting in a larger cost (or negative reward) than in the forceful strategy, the overall cost is lower, thus revealing a more rewarding strategy.


title: Q-learning

text: After formula_2 steps into the future the agent will decide some next step. The weight for this step is calculated as formula_3, where formula_4 (the "discount factor") is a number between 0 and 1 (formula_5) and has the effect of valuing rewards received earlier higher than those received later (reflecting the value of a "good start"). formula_6 may also be interpreted as the probability to succeed (or survive) at every step formula_2.


title: Q-learning

text: Before learning begins, is initialized to a possibly arbitrary fixed value (chosen by the programmer). Then, at each time formula_9 the agent selects an action formula_10, observes a reward formula_11, enters a new state formula_12 (that may depend on both the previous state formula_13 and the selected action), and formula_14 is updated. The core of the algorithm is a Bellman equation as a simple value iteration update, using the weighted average of the current value and the new information:


title: Q-learning

text: where "formula_16" is the reward received when moving from the state formula_17 to the state formula_12, and formula_19 is the learning rate formula_20.


title: Q-learning

text: An episode of the algorithm ends when state formula_12 is a final or "terminal state". However, "Q"-learning can also learn in non-episodic tasks (as a result of the property of convergent infinite series). If the discount factor is lower than 1, the action values are finite even if the problem can contain infinite loops.


title: Q-learning

text: For all final states formula_30, formula_31 is never updated, but is set to the reward value formula_32 observed for state formula_30. In most cases, formula_34 can be taken to equal zero.


title: Q-learning

text: The learning rate or "step size" determines to what extent newly acquired information overrides old information. A factor of 0 makes the agent learn nothing (exclusively exploiting prior knowledge), while a factor of 1 makes the agent consider only the most recent information (ignoring prior knowledge to explore possibilities). In fully deterministic environments, a learning rate of formula_35 is optimal. When the problem is stochastic, the algorithm converges under some technical conditions on the learning rate that require it to decrease to zero. In practice, often a constant learning rate is used, such as formula_36 for all formula_9.


title: Q-learning

text: The discount factor determines the importance of future rewards. A factor of 0 will make the agent "myopic" (or short-sighted) by only considering current rewards, i.e. formula_11 (in the update rule above), while a factor approaching 1 will make it strive for a long-term high reward. If the discount factor meets or exceeds 1, the action values may diverge. For , without a terminal state, or if the agent never reaches one, all environment histories become infinitely long, and utilities with additive, undiscounted rewards generally become infinite. Even with a discount factor only slightly lower than 1, "Q"-function learning leads to propagation of errors and instabilities when the value function is approximated with an artificial neural network. In that case, starting with a lower discount factor and increasing it towards its final value accelerates learning.


title: Q-learning

text: Since "Q"-learning is an iterative algorithm, it implicitly assumes an initial condition before the first update occurs. High initial values, also known as "optimistic initial conditions", can encourage exploration: no matter what action is selected, the update rule will cause it to have lower values than the other alternative, thus increasing their choice probability. The first reward formula_32 can be used to reset the initial conditions. According to this idea, the first time an action is taken the reward is used to set the value of formula_14. This allows immediate learning in case of fixed deterministic rewards. A model that incorporates "reset of initial conditions" (RIC) is expected to predict participants' behavior better than a model that assumes any "arbitrary initial condition" (AIC). RIC seems to be consistent with human behaviour in repeated binary choice experiments.


title: Q-learning

text: "Q"-learning at its simplest stores data in tables. This approach falters with increasing numbers of states/actions since the likelihood of the agent visiting a particular state and performing a particular action is increasingly small.


title: Q-learning

text: "Q"-learning can be combined with function approximation. This makes it possible to apply the algorithm to larger problems, even when the state space is continuous.


title: Q-learning

text: One solution is to use an (adapted) artificial neural network as a function approximator. Another possibility is to integrate Fuzzy Rule Interpolation (FRI) and use sparse fuzzy rule-bases instead of discrete Q-tables or ANNs, which has the advantage of being a human-readable knowledge representation form. Function approximation may speed up learning in finite problems, due to the fact that the algorithm can generalize earlier experiences to previously unseen states.


title: Q-learning

text: Another technique to decrease the state/action space quantizes possible values. Consider the example of learning to balance a stick on a finger. To describe a state at a certain point in time involves the position of the finger in space, its velocity, the angle of the stick and the angular velocity of the stick. This yields a four-element vector that describes one state, i.e. a snapshot of one state encoded into four values. The problem is that infinitely many possible states are present. To shrink the possible space of valid actions multiple values can be assigned to a bucket. The exact distance of the finger from its starting position (-Infinity to Infinity) is not known, but rather whether it is far away or not (Near, Far).


title: Q-learning

text: "Q"-learning was introduced by Chris Watkins in 1989. A convergence proof was presented by Watkins and Peter Dayan in 1992.


title: Q-learning

text: Watkins was addressing “Learning from delayed rewards”, the title of his PhD thesis. Eight years earlier in 1981 the same problem, under the name of “Delayed reinforcement learning”, was solved by Bozinovski's Crossbar Adaptive Array (CAA). The memory matrix formula_41 was the same as the eight years later Q-table of Q-learning. The architecture introduced the term “state evaluation” in reinforcement learning. The crossbar learning algorithm, written in mathematical pseudocode in the paper, in each iteration performs the following computation:


title: Q-learning

text: The term “secondary reinforcement” is borrowed from animal learning theory, to model state values via backpropagation: the state value of the consequence situation is backpropagated to the previously encountered situations. CAA computes state values vertically and actions horizontally (the "crossbar"). Demonstration graphs showing delayed reinforcement learning contained states (desirable, undesirable, and neutral states), which were computed by the state evaluation function. This learning system was a forerunner of the Q-learning algorithm.


title: Q-learning

text: In 2014, Google DeepMind patented an application of Q-learning to deep learning, titled "deep reinforcement learning" or "deep Q-learning" that can play Atari 2600 games at expert human levels.


title: Q-learning

text: The DeepMind system used a deep convolutional neural network, with layers of tiled convolutional filters to mimic the effects of receptive fields. Reinforcement learning is unstable or divergent when a nonlinear function approximator such as a neural network is used to represent Q. This instability comes from the correlations present in the sequence of observations, the fact that small updates to Q may significantly change the policy of the agent and the data distribution, and the correlations between Q and the target values. The method can be used for stochastic search in various domains and applications.


title: Q-learning

text: The technique used "experience replay," a biologically inspired mechanism that uses a random sample of prior actions instead of the most recent action to proceed. This removes correlations in the observation sequence and smooths changes in the data distribution. Iterative updates adjust Q towards target values that are only periodically updated, further reducing correlations with the target.


title: Q-learning

text: Because the future maximum approximated action value in Q-learning is evaluated using the same Q function as in current action selection policy, in noisy environments Q-learning can sometimes overestimate the action values, slowing the learning. A variant called Double Q-learning was proposed to correct this. Double Q-learning is an off-policy reinforcement learning algorithm, where a different policy is used for value evaluation than what is used to select the next action.


title: Q-learning

text: In practice, two separate value functions are trained in a mutually symmetric fashion using separate experiences, formula_43 and formula_44. The double Q-learning update step is then as follows:


title: Q-learning

text: Now the estimated value of the discounted future is evaluated using a different policy, which solves the overestimation issue.


title: Q-learning

text: This algorithm was later modified in 2015 and combined with deep learning, as in the DQN algorithm, resulting in Double DQN, which outperforms the original DQN algorithm.


title: Q-learning

text: Delayed Q-learning is an alternative implementation of the online "Q"-learning algorithm, with probably approximately correct (PAC) learning.


title: Q-learning

text: Greedy GQ is a variant of "Q"-learning to use in combination with (linear) function approximation. The advantage of Greedy GQ is that convergence is guaranteed even when function approximation is used to estimate the action values.


title: Q-learning

text: Distributional Q-learning is a variant of "Q"-learning which seeks to model the distribution of returns rather than the expected return of each action. It has been observed to facilitate estimate by deep neural networks and can enable alternative control methods, such as risk-sensitive control.


title: Q-learning

text: The standard Q-learning algorithm (using a formula_14 table) applies only to discrete action and state spaces. Discretization of these values leads to inefficient learning, largely due to the curse of dimensionality. However, there are adaptations of Q-learning that attempt to solve this problem such as Wire-fitted Neural Network Q-Learning.


title: Kayak

text: A kayak is a small, narrow watercraft which is typically propelled by means of a double-bladed paddle. The word kayak originates from the Greenlandic word "qajaq" ().


title: Kayak

text: The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each seating one paddler. The cockpit is sometimes covered by a spray deck that prevents the entry of water from waves or spray, differentiating the craft from a canoe. The spray deck makes it possible for suitably skilled kayakers to roll the kayak: that is, to capsize and right it without it filling with water or ejecting the paddler.


title: Kayak

text: Some modern boats vary considerably from a traditional design but still claim the title "kayak", for instance in eliminating the cockpit by seating the paddler on top of the boat ("sit-on-top" kayaks); having inflated air chambers surrounding the boat; replacing the single hull with twin hulls; and replacing paddles with other human-powered propulsion methods, such as foot-powered rotational propellers and "flippers". Kayaks are also being sailed, as well as propelled by means of small electric motors, and even by outboard gasoline engines.


title: Kayak

text: The kayak was first used by the indigenous Aleut, Inuit, Yupik and possibly Ainu hunters in subarctic regions of the world.


title: Kayak

text: Kayaks (Inuktitut: "qajaq" (ᖃᔭᖅ ), Yup'ik: "qayaq" (from "qai-" "surface; top"), Aleut: "Iqyax") were originally developed by the Inuit, Yup'ik, and Aleut. They used the boats to hunt on inland lakes, rivers and coastal waters of the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic, Bering Sea and North Pacific oceans. These first kayaks were constructed from stitched seal or other animal skins stretched over a wood or whalebone-skeleton frame. (Western Alaskan Natives used wood whereas the eastern Inuit used whalebone due to the treeless landscape). Kayaks are believed to be at least 4,000 years old. The oldest kayaks remaining are exhibited in the North America department of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich, with the oldest dating from 1577.


title: Kayak

text: Subarctic people made many types of boats for different purposes. The Aleut baidarka was made in double or triple cockpit designs, for hunting and transporting passengers or goods. An umiak is a large open-sea canoe, ranging from , made with seal skins and wood. It is considered a kayak although it was originally paddled with single-bladed paddles, and typically had more than one paddler.


title: Kayak

text: Subarctic builders designed and built their boats based on their own experience and that of the generations before them passed on through oral tradition. The word "kayak" means "man's boat" or "hunter's boat", and subartic kayaks were a personal craft, each built by the man who used it—with assistance from his wife, who sewed the skins—and closely fitting his size for maximum maneuverability. The paddler wore a tuilik, a garment that was stretched over the rim of the kayak coaming and sealed with drawstrings at the coaming, wrists, and hood edges. This enabled the "eskimo roll" and rescue to become the preferred methods of recovery after capsizing, especially as few Inuit could swim; their waters are too cold for a swimmer to survive for long.


title: Kayak

text: Instead of a "tuilik", most traditional kayakers today use a spray deck made of waterproof synthetic material stretchy enough to fit tightly around the cockpit rim and body of the kayaker, and which can be released rapidly from the cockpit to permit easy exit (in particular in a wet exit after a capsizing).


title: Kayak

text: Inuit kayak builders had specific measurements for their boats. The length was typically three times the span of his outstretched arms. The width at the cockpit was the width of the builder's hips plus two fists (and sometimes less). The typical depth was his fist plus the outstretched thumb (hitch hiker). Thus typical dimensions were about long by wide by deep. This measurement system confounded early European explorers who tried to duplicate the kayak because each kayak was a little different.


title: Kayak

text: Traditional kayaks encompass three types: "Baidarkas", from the Bering Sea & Aleutian Islands, the oldest design, whose rounded shape and numerous chines give them an almost blimp-like appearance; "West Greenland" kayaks, with fewer chines and a more angular shape, with gunwales rising to a point at the bow and stern; and "East Greenland" kayaks that appear similar to the West Greenland style, but often fit more snugly to the paddler and possess a steeper angle between gunwale and stem, which lends maneuverability.


title: Kayak

text: Most of the Aleut people in the Aleutian Islands eastward to Greenland Inuit relied on the kayak for hunting a variety of prey—primarily seals, though whales and caribou were important in some areas. Skin-on-frame kayaks are still being used for hunting by Inuit in Greenland, because the smooth and flexible skin glides silently through the waves. In other parts of the world home builders are continuing the tradition of skin on frame kayaks, usually with modern skins of canvas or synthetic fabric, such as sc. ballistic nylon.


title: Kayak

text: Contemporary traditional-style kayaks trace their origins primarily to the native boats of Alaska, northern Canada, and Southwest Greenland. The use of fabric kayaks on wooden frames called a foldboat or folding kayak (German Faltboot or Hardernkahn) became widely popular in Europe beginning in 1907 when they were mass-produced by Johannes Klepper and others. This type of kayak was introduced to England and Europe by John MacGregor (sportsman) in 1860, but Klepper was the first person to mass-produce these boats made of collapsible wooden frames covered by waterproof rubberized canvas. By 1929, Klepper and Company were making 90 foldboats a day. Joined by other European manufacturers, by the mid-1930s there were an estimated half-million foldboat kayaks in use throughout Europe. First Nation masters of the roll taught this technique to Europeans during this time period.


title: Kayak

text: These boats were tough and intrepid individuals were soon doing amazing things in them. In June 1928, a German named Franz Romer Sea kayak rigged his long foldboat with a sail and departed from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands carrying of tinned food and of water. Fifty-eight days and later he reached Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Another German, Oskar Speck, paddled his foldboat down the Danube and four years later reached the Australian coast after having traveled roughly 14,000 miles across the Pacific.


title: Kayak

text: These watercraft were brought to the United States and used competitively in 1940 at the first National Whitewater Championship held in America near Middledam, Maine, on the Rapid River (Maine). One “winner,” Royal Little, crossed the finish line clinging to his overturned foldboat. Upstream, the river was “strewn with many badly buffeted and some wrecked boats.” Two women were in the competition, Amy Lang and Marjory Hurd. With her partner Ken Hutchinson, Hurd won the double canoe race. Lang won the doubles foldboat event with her partner, Alexander "Zee" Grant.


title: Kayak

text: Fiberglass mixed with resin composites, invented in the 1930s and 1940s, were soon used to make kayaks and this type of watercraft saw increased use during the 1950s, including in the US. Kayak Slalom World Champion Walter Kirschbaum built a fiberglass kayak and paddled it through Grand Canyon in June 1960. He knew how to roll and only swam once, in Hance Rapid (see List of Colorado River rapids and features). Like Grant's foldboat, Kirschbaum's fiberglass kayak had no seat and no thigh braces. In June 1987, Ed Gillet, using a stock off the shelf "traditional design" 20 foot long by 31 inch wide fiberglass tandem kayak paddled over 2,000 miles non-stop from Monterey, California to Hawaii, landing his vessel there on August 27, 1987, after 64 days of paddling. Gillet had navigated his kayak by using a traditional sextant and compass, along with approximately 600 pounds of food and water, including a device to convert sea water to fresh water. Within 6 days of reaching Hawaii, both he and his yellow kayak were featured on "The Tonight Show", hosted by Johnny Carson.


title: Kayak

text: Inflatable rubberized fabric boats were first introduced in Europe and rotomolded plastic kayaks first appeared in 1973. Most kayaks today are made from roto-molded polyethylene resins. The development of plastic and rubberized inflatable kayaks arguably initiated the development of freestyle kayaking as we see it today since these boats could be made smaller, stronger, and more resilient than fiberglass boats.


title: Kayak

text: Typically, kayak design is largely a matter of trade-offs: directional stability ("tracking") vs maneuverability; stability vs speed; and primary vs secondary stability. Multihull kayaks face a different set of trade-offs. The paddler's body shape and size is an integral part of the structure, and will also affect the trade-offs made.


title: Kayak

text: Attempting to lift and carry a kayak by oneself or improperly is a significant cause of kayaking injuries. Good lifting technique, sharing loads, and not using needlessly large and heavy kayaks prevents injuries.


title: Kayak

text: If the displacement of a kayak is not enough to support the passenger(s) and gear, it will sink. If the displacement is excessive, the kayak will float too high, catch the wind and waves uncomfortably, and handle poorly; it will probably also be bigger and heavier than it needs to be. Being excessively big will create more drag, and the kayak will move more slowly and take more effort. Rolling is easier in lower-displacement kayaks. On the other hand, a higher deck will keep the paddler(s) drier and make self-rescue and coming through surf easier. Many beginning paddlers who use a sit-in kayak feel more secure in a kayak with a weight capacity substantially more than their own weight. Maximum volume in a sit-in kayak is helped by a wide hull with high sides. But paddling ease is helped by lower sides where the paddler sits and a narrower width.


title: Kayak

text: While the kayak's buoyancy must be more than the loaded kayak, the optimal amount of excess buoyancy varies somewhat with kayak type, purpose, and personal taste (squirt boats, for instance, have very little positive buoyancy). Displacements obviously must also vary greatly with paddler weight. Most manufacturers make kayaks for paddlers weighing , with some kayaks for paddlers down to . Kayaks made for paddlers under are almost all very beamy and intended for beginners.


title: Kayak

text: About 20% of the US population are not in this weight range; either they are too heavy, and will sink almost all commercial kayaks, or they are too light and small to paddle the smallest ones without difficulty. In the United States, those who are too heavy are fairly equally split between men and women, while those too light include many women, most pre-teens, and some teens, but less than 1% of men. Paddling an oversized kayak can be extremely tiring, especially if it is square with a flat bottom. Oversized kayaks for children mean that they are likely to need to be towed towards the end of a paddle. Some commercial kayaks are made to fit small adults and children, and a few are built narrower, to fit women (see section on stability, below).


title: Kayak

text: As a general rule, a longer kayak is faster: it has a higher hull speed. It can also be narrower for a given displacement, reducing the drag, and it will generally track (follow a straight line) better than a shorter kayak. On the other hand, it is less maneuverable. Very long kayaks are less robust, and may be harder to store and transport. Some recreational kayak makers try to maximize hull volume (weight capacity) for a given length as shorter kayaks are easier to transport and store.


title: Kayak

text: Kayaks that are built to cover longer distances such as touring and sea kayaks are longer, generally . With touring kayaks the keel is generally more defined (helping the kayaker track in a straight line). Whitewater kayaks, which generally depend upon river current for their forward motion, are short, to maximize maneuverability. These kayaks rarely exceed in length, and "play boats" may be only long. Recreational kayak designers try to provide more stability at the price of reduced speed, and compromise between tracking and maneuverability, ranging from .


title: Kayak

text: Length alone does not fully predict a kayak's maneuverability: a second design element is "rocker", i.e. its lengthwise curvature. A heavily "rockered" boat curves more, shortening its effective waterline. For example, an kayak with no rocker is in the water from end to end. In contrast, the bow and stern of a rockered boat are out of the water, shortening its lengthwise waterline to only . Rocker is generally most evident at the ends, and in moderation improves handling. Similarly, although a rockered whitewater boat may only be about a meter shorter than a typical recreational kayak, its waterline is far shorter and its maneuverability far greater. When surfing, a heavily rockered boat is less likely to lock into the wave as the bow and stern are still above water. A boat with less rocker cuts into the wave and makes it harder to turn while surfing.


title: Kayak

text: The overall width of a kayak's cross-section is its "beam". A wide hull is more stable and packs more displacement into a shorter length. A narrow hull has less drag and is generally easier to paddle; in waves, it will ride more easily and stay dryer.


title: Kayak

text: A narrower kayak makes a somewhat shorter paddle appropriate and a shorter paddle puts less strain on the shoulder joints. Some paddlers are comfortable with a sit-in kayak so narrow that their legs extend fairly straight out. Others want sufficient width to permit crossing their legs inside the kayak.


title: Kayak

text: "Primary" (sometimes called "initial") stability describes how much a boat tips, or rocks back and forth when displaced from level by paddler weight shifts. "Secondary" stability describes how stable a kayak feels when put on edge or when waves are passing under the hull perpendicular to the length of the boat. For kayak rolling, "tertiary" stability, or the stability of an upside-down kayak, is also important (lower tertiary stability makes rolling up easier).


title: Kayak

text: Primary stability is often a big concern to a beginner, while secondary stability matters both to beginners and experienced travelers. By example, a wide, flat-bottomed kayak will have high primary stability and feel very stable on flat water. However, when a steep wave breaks on such a boat, it can be easily overturned because the flat bottom is no longer level. By contrast, a kayak with a narrower, more rounded hull with more hull flare can be edged or leaned into waves and (in the hands of a skilled kayaker) provides a safer, more comfortable response on stormy seas. Kayaks with only moderate primary, but excellent secondary stability are, in general, considered more seaworthy, especially in challenging conditions.


title: Kayak

text: The shape of the cross section affects stability, maneuverability, and drag. Hull shapes are categorized by roundness, flatness, and by the presence and angle of chines. This cross-section may vary along the length of the boat.


title: Kayak

text: A chine typically increases secondary stability by effectively widening the beam of the boat when it heels (tips). A V-shaped hull tends to travel straight (track) well but makes turning harder. V-shaped hulls also have the greatest secondary stability. Conversely, flat-bottomed hulls are easy to turn, but harder to direct in a constant direction. A round-bottomed boat has minimal area in contact with the water, and thus minimizes drag; however, it may be so unstable that it will not remain upright when floating empty, and needs continual effort to keep it upright. In a skin-on-frame kayak, chine placement may be constrained by the need to avoid the bones of the pelvis.


title: Kayak

text: Sea kayaks, designed for open water and rough conditions, are generally narrower at and have more secondary stability than recreational kayaks, which are wider , have a flatter hull shape, and more primary stability.


title: Kayak

text: The body of the paddler must also be taken into account. A paddler with a low center of gravity (COG) will find all boats more stable; for a paddler with a high center of gravity, all boats will feel tippier. On average, women have a lower COG than men. Women generally may fit a kayak about 10% narrower than the kayak that would fit a similarly sized man. Commercial kayaks made for women are rare. Unisex kayaks are built for men. Younger children have proportionately smaller and lighter bodies, but near-adult-size heads, and thus a higher center of gravity. A paddler with narrow shoulders will also want a narrower kayak.


title: Kayak

text: Newcomers will often want a craft with high primary stability (see above). The southern method is a wider kayak. The West Greenland method is a removable pair of outriggers, lashed across the stern deck. Such an outrigger pair is often homemade of a small plank and found floats such as empty bottles or plastic ducks. Outriggers are also made commercially, especially for fishing kayaks and sailing. If the floats are set so that they are both in the water, they give primary stability, but produce more drag. If they are set so that they are both out of the water when the kayak is balanced, they give secondary stability.


title: Kayak

text: Traditional-style and some modern types of kayaks (e.g. sit-on-top) require that paddler be seated with their legs stretched in front of them, in a right angle, in a position called the "L" kayaking position. Other kayaks offer a different sitting position, in which the paddler's legs are not stretched out in front of them, and the thigh brace bears more on the inside than the top of the thighs (see diagram).


title: Kayak

text: A kayaker must be able to move the hull of their kayak by moving their lower body, and brace themselves against the hull (mostly with the feet) on each stroke. Most kayaks therefore have footrests and a backrest. Some kayaks fit snugly on the hips; others rely more on thigh braces. Mass-produced kayaks generally have adjustable bracing points. Many paddlers also customize their kayaks by putting in shims of closed-cell foam (usually EVA), or more elaborate structures, to make it fit more tightly.


title: Kayak

text: Paddling puts substantial force through the legs, alternately with each stroke. The knees should therefore not be hyperextended. Separately, if the kneecap is in contact with the boat, or the knee joint is in torsion, this will cause pain and may injure the knee. Insufficient foot space will cause painful cramping and inefficient paddling. The paddler should generally be in a comfortable position.


title: Kayak

text: Today almost all kayaks are commercial products intended for sale rather than for the builder's personal use.


title: Kayak

text: Fiberglass hulls are stiffer than polyethylene hulls, but they are more prone to damage from impact, including cracking. Most modern kayaks have steep V sections at the bow and stern, and a shallow V amidships. Fiberglass kayaks may be "laid-up" in a mold by hand, in which case they are usually more expensive than polyethylene kayaks, which are rotationally molded in a machine. The deck and hull are often made separately and then joined at a horizontal seam.


title: Kayak

text: Plastic kayaks are rotationally molded ('rotomolded') from a various grades and types of polyethylene resins ranging from soft to hard. Such kayaks are seamless and particularly resistant to impact, but heavy.


title: Kayak

text: Inflatable kayaks are increasingly popular due to their ease of storage and transport, as well as the ability to be deflated for extended portage. Although slower than hardshell kayaks, many higher-end models often constructed of hypalon, as opposed to cheaper PVC designs, begin to approach the performance of traditional sea kayaks. Being inflatable they are virtually unsinkable and often more stable than hardshell designs. New drop-stitch technology means slab, rather than tube shapes are used in the designs with higher inflation pressures (up to ), leading to considerably faster, though often less stable kayaks which rival hardshell boats in performance.


title: Kayak

text: Solid wooden hulls don't necessarily require significant skill and handiwork, depending on how they are made. Three main types are popular, especially for the home builder: plywood stitch & glue (S&G), strip-built, and hybrids which have a stitch & glue hull and a strip-built deck. Kayaks made from wood sheathed in fiberglass have proven successful, especially as the price of epoxy resin has decreased in recent years.


title: Kayak

text: Stitch & glue designs typically use modern, marine-grade plywood with a thickness of about . After cutting out the required pieces of hull and deck (kits often have these pre-cut), a series of small holes are drilled along the edges. Copper wire is then used to "stitch" the pieces together through the holes. After the pieces are temporarily stitched together, they are glued with epoxy and the seams reinforced with fiberglass. When the epoxy dries, the copper stitches are removed. Sometimes the entire boat is then covered in fiberglass for additional strength and waterproofing though this adds greatly to the weight and is unnecessary. Construction is fairly straightforward, but because plywood does not bend to form compound curves, design choices are limited. This is a good choice for the first-time kayak builder as the labor and skills required (especially for kit versions) is considerably less than for strip-built boats which can take 3 times as long to build.


title: Kayak

text: Strip-built designs are similar in shape to rigid fiberglass kayaks but are generally both lighter and tougher. Like their fiberglass counterparts the shape and size of the boat determines performance and optimal uses. The hull and deck are built with thin strips of lightweight wood, often thuja (Western Red cedar), pine or redwood. The strips are edge-glued together around a form, stapled or clamped in place, and allowed to dry. Structural strength comes from a layer of fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin, layered inside and outside the hull. Strip–built kayaks are sold commercially by a few companies, priced US$4,000 and up. An experienced woodworker can build one for about US$400 in 200 hours, though the exact cost and time depend on the builder's skill, the materials and the size and design. As a second kayak project, or for the serious builder with some woodworking expertise, a strip–built boat can be an impressive piece of work. Kits with pre-cut and milled wood strips are commercially available.


title: Kayak

text: Skin-on-frame (SOF) boats are often more traditional in design, materials, and construction. They were traditionally made with driftwood frames, jointed, pegged, and lashed together, and covered with stretched seal skin, as those were the most readily available materials in the Arctic regions (other skins and baleen framing members were also used at need). A "poor man's kayak" might be frameless and stuffed with a snow "frame". Today, seal skin is usually replaced with canvas or nylon cloth covered with paint, polyurethane, or a hypalon rubber coating, on a wooden or aluminum frame. Modern skin-on-frame kayaks often possess greater impact resistance than their fiberglass counterparts, but are less durable against abrasion or sharp objects. They are often the lightest kayaks. Like the older skin-on-frame kayaks, they are often home-built to fit a specific paddler. Engineer Xyla Foxlin built a kayak out of transparent wood as well as LEDs to create a floating vessel that lights up at night, which she calls the "Rainbowt".


title: Kayak

text: A special type of skin-on-frame kayak is the folding kayak. It has a collapsible frame, of wood, aluminum or plastic, or a combination thereof, and a skin of water-resistant and durable fabric. Many types have air sponsons built into the hull, making the kayak float even if flooded.


title: Kayak

text: Most modern kayaks differ greatly from the original traditional subarctic kayaks in design, manufacturing and usage. They are often designed with computer-aided design (CAD) software, often in combination with CAD customized for naval design.


title: Kayak

text: Modern kayaks serve diverse purposes, ranging from slow and easy touring on placid water, to racing and complex maneuvering in fast-moving whitewater, to fishing and long-distance ocean excursions. Modern forms, materials and construction techniques make it possible to effectively serve these needs while continuing to leverage the insights of the original Arctic inventors.


title: Kayak

text: Kayaks are long—, short—, wide—, or as narrow as the paddler's hips—for example . They may attach one or two stabilizing hulls (outriggers), have twin hulls like catamarans, inflate or fold. They move via paddles, pedals that turn propellers or underwater flippers, under sail, or motor. They're made of wood/canvas, wood, carbon fiber, fiberglass, Kevlar, polyethylene, polyester, rubberized fabric, neoprene, nitrylon, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyurethane, and aluminum. They may sport rudders, fins, bulkheads, seats, eyelets, foot braces and cargo hatches. They accommodate 1–3 or more paddlers/riders.


title: Kayak

text: Modern kayaks have evolved into specialized types that may be broadly categorized according to their application as "sea or touring kayaks", "whitewater" (or "river") "kayaks", "surf kayaks", "racing kayaks", "fishing kayaks," and "recreational" kayaks. The broader kayak categories today are 'sit-in' (SI), which is inspired mainly by traditional kayak forms, 'sit-on-top' (SOT), which evolved from paddle boards that were outfitted with footrests and a backrest, 'hybrid', which are essentially canoes featuring a narrower beam and a reduced free board enabling the paddler to propel them from the middle of the boat, using a double blade paddle (i.e. 'kayak paddle'), and twin hull kayaks offering each of the paddler's legs a narrow hull of its own.


title: Kayak

text: In recent decades, kayaks design have proliferated to a point where the only broadly accepted denominator for them is their being designed mainly for paddling using a kayak paddle featuring two blades i.e. 'kayak paddle'. However, even this inclusive definition is being challenged by other means of human powered propulsion, such as foot activated pedal drives combined with rotating or sideways moving propellers, electric motors, and even outboard motors.


title: Kayak

text: Recreational kayaks are designed for the casual paddler interested in fishing, photography, or a peaceful paddle on a lake, flatwater stream or protected salt water away from strong ocean waves. These boats presently make up the largest segment of kayak sales. Compared to other kayaks, recreational kayaks have a larger cockpit for easier entry and exit and a wider beam () for more stability. They are generally less than in length and have limited cargo capacity. Less expensive materials like polyethylene and fewer options keep these boats relatively inexpensive. Most canoe/kayak clubs offer introductory instruction in recreational boats. They do not perform as well in the sea. The recreational kayak is usually a type of touring kayak.


title: Kayak

text: "Sea kayaks" are typically designed for travel by one, two or even three paddlers on open water and in many cases trade maneuverability for seaworthiness, stability, and cargo capacity. Sea-kayak sub-types include "skin-on-frame" kayaks with traditionally constructed frames, open-deck "sit-on-top" kayaks, and recreational kayaks.


title: Kayak

text: The sea kayak, though descended directly from traditional types, is implemented in a variety of materials. Sea kayaks typically have a longer waterline, and provisions for below-deck storage of cargo. Sea kayaks may also have rudders or skegs (fixed rudder) and upturned bow or stern profiles for wave shedding. Modern sea kayaks usually have two or more internal bulkheads. Some models can accommodate two or sometimes three paddlers.


title: Kayak

text: Sealed-hull ("unsinkable") craft were developed for leisure use, as derivatives of surfboards (e.g. paddle or wave skis), or for surf conditions. Variants include planing surf craft, touring kayaks, and sea marathon kayaks. Increasingly, manufacturers build leisure 'sit-on-top' variants of extreme sports craft, typically using polyethylene to ensure strength and affordability, often with a skeg for directional stability.


title: Kayak

text: Sit-on-top kayaks come in 1–4 paddler configurations. Sit-on-top kayaks are particularly popular for fishing and SCUBA diving, since participants need to easily enter and exit the water, change seating positions, and access hatches and storage wells. Ordinarily the seat of a sit-on-top is slightly above water level, so the center of gravity for the paddler is higher than in a traditional kayak. To compensate for the higher center of gravity, sit-on-tops are often wider and slower than a traditional kayak of the same length.


title: Kayak

text: Water that enters the cockpit of a sit-on-top kayak drains out through scupper holes—tubes that run from the cockpit to the bottom of the hull. The "cockpit" is thus self-bailing. The hull may be sealed, or perforated by hatches and deck fixtures. Contrary to popular belief, the sit-on-top kayak "hull" is not self-bailing, since water penetrating it does not drain out automatically, as it does in bigger boats equipped with self-bailing systems. Furthermore, the sit-on-top hull cannot be molded in a way that would assure water tightness, and water may get in through various holes in its hull, usually around hatches and deck accessories. If the sit-on-top kayak is loaded to a point where such perforations are covered with water, or if the water paddled is rough enough that such perforations often go under water, the sit-on-top hull may fill with water without the paddler noticing it in time. If a sealed hull develops a split or hole, it will also fill and sink.


title: Kayak

text: Specialty surf boats typically have flat bottoms, and hard edges, similar to surf boards. The design of a surf kayak promotes the use of an ocean surf wave (moving wave) as opposed to a river or feature wave (moving water). They are typically made from rotomolded plastic, or fiberglass.


title: Kayak

text: Surf kayaking comes in two main varieties, High Performance (HP) and International Class (IC). High Performance boats tend to have a lot of nose rocker, little to no tail rocker, flat hulls, sharp rails and up to four fins set up as either a three fin thruster or a quad fin. This enables them to move at high speed and maneuver dynamically. International Class boats have to be at least long and until a recent rule change had to have a convex hull; now flat and slightly concave hulls are also allowed, although fins are not. Surfing on international boats tends to be smoother and more flowing, and they are thought of as kayaking's "long boarding". Surf boats come in a variety of materials ranging from tough but heavy plastics to super light, super stiff but fragile foam–cored carbon fiber. Surf kayaking has become popular in traditional surfing locations, as well as new locations such as the Great Lakes.


title: Kayak

text: A variation on the closed-cockpit surf kayak is called a waveski. Although the waveski offers dynamics similar to a sit–on–top, its paddling technique and surfing performance and construction can be similar to surfboard designs.


title: Kayak

text: Whitewater kayaks are rotomolded in a semi-rigid, high impact plastic, usually polyethylene. Careful construction ensures that the boat remains structurally sound when subjected to fast-moving water. The plastic hull allows these kayaks to bounce off rocks without leaking, although they scratch and eventually puncture with enough use. Whitewater kayaks range from long. There are two main types of whitewater kayak, playboats and river-running boats. Creekboats (for small rivers) and squirt boats are more specialized.


title: Kayak

text: One type, the "playboat", is short, with a scooped bow and blunt stern. These trade speed and stability for high maneuverability. Their primary use is performing tricks in individual water features or short stretches of river. In playboating or "freestyle" competition (also known as "rodeo" boating), kayakers exploit the complex currents of rapids to execute a series of tricks, which are scored for skill and style.


title: Kayak

text: The other primary type is the creek boat, which gets its name from its purpose: running narrow, low-volume waterways. Creekboats are longer and have far more volume than playboats, which makes them more stable, faster and higher-floating. Many paddlers use creekboats in "short boat" downriver races, and they are often seen on large rivers where their extra stability and speed may be necessary to get through rapids.


title: Kayak

text: Between the creekboat and playboat extremes is a category called "river–running" kayaks. These medium–sized boats are designed for rivers of moderate to high volume, and some, known as "river running playboats", are capable of basic playboating moves. They are typically owned by paddlers who do not have enough whitewater involvement to warrant the purchase of more–specialized boats.


title: Kayak

text: Squirt boating involves paddling both on the surface of the river and underwater. Squirt boats must be custom-fitted to the paddler to ensure comfort while maintaining the low interior volume necessary to allow the paddler to submerge completely in the river.


title: Kayak

text: White water racers combine a fast, unstable lower hull portion with a flared upper hull portion to combine flat water racing speed with extra stability in open water: they are not fitted with rudders and have similar maneuverability to flat water racers. They usually require substantial skill to achieve stability, due to extremely narrow hulls. Whitewater racing kayaks, like all racing kayaks, are made to regulation lengths, usually of fiber reinforced resin (usually epoxy or polyester reinforced with Kevlar, glass fiber, carbon fiber, or some combination). This form of construction is stiffer and has a harder skin than non-reinforced plastic construction such as rotomolded polyethylene: stiffer means faster, and harder means fewer scratches and therefore also faster.


title: Kayak

text: Sprint kayak is a sport held on calm water. Crews or individuals race over 200 m, 500 m, 1000 m or 5000 m with the winning boat being the first to cross the finish line. The paddler is seated, facing forward, and uses a double-bladed paddle pulling the blade through the water on alternate sides to propel the boat forward. In competition the number of paddlers within a boat is indicated by a figure besides the type of boat; K1 signifies an individual kayak race, K2 pairs, and K4 four-person crews. Kayak sprint has been in every summer olympics since it debuted at the 1936 summer olympics. Racing is governed by the International Canoe Federation.


title: Kayak

text: Slalom kayaks are flat–hulled, and—since the early 1970s—feature low profile decks. They are highly maneuverable, and stable but not fast in a straight line.


title: Kayak

text: A specialized variant of racing craft called a "surf ski" has an open cockpit and can be up to long but only wide, requiring expert balance and paddling skill. Surf skis were originally created for surf and are still used in races in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. They have become popular in the United States for ocean races, lake races and even downriver races.


title: Kayak

text: Marathon races vary in distances from ten kilometres to over 1000 kilometres for multi-day stage races.


title: Kayak

text: Inflatables, also known as the "duckies" or "IKs", can usually be transported by hand using a carry bag. They are generally made of hypalon (a kind of neoprene), nitrilon (nitrile-rubberized fabric), PVC, or polyurethane-coated cloth. They can be inflated with foot, hand or electric pumps. Multiple compartments in all but the least expensive increase safety. They generally use low pressure air, almost always below .


title: Kayak

text: While many inflatables are non-rigid, essentially pointed rafts, best suited for use on rivers and calm water, the higher-end inflatables are designed to be hardy, seaworthy vessels. Recently some manufacturers have added an internal frame (folding-style) to a multi-section inflatable sit-on-top kayak to produce a seaworthy boat. Fully drop-stitch inflatable kayaks are also available, which are inflated to 8–10 PSI. They are much stiffer, which enhances their paddling characteristics to vastly outperform traditional inflatable kayaks.


title: Kayak

text: The appeal of inflatable kayaks is their portability, their durability (they don't dent), ruggedness in white water (they bounce off rocks rather than break) and their easy storage. In addition, inflatable kayaks generally are stable, have a small turning radius and are easy to master, although some models take more effort to paddle and are slower than traditional kayaks.


title: Kayak

text: Because inflatable kayaks aren't as sturdy as traditional, hard-shelled kayaks, a lot of people tend to steer away from them. However, there have been considerable advancements in inflatable kayak technology over recent years.


title: Kayak

text: Folding kayaks are direct descendants of the skin-on-frame boats used by the Inuit and Greenlandic peoples. Modern folding kayaks are constructed from a wooden or aluminum frame over which is placed a synthetic skin made of polyester, cotton canvas, polyurethane, or Hypalon. They are more expensive than inflatable kayaks, but have the advantage of greater stiffness and consequently better seaworthiness.


title: Kayak

text: Walter Höhn (English Hoehn) had built, developed and then tested his design for a folding kayak in the white-water rivers of Switzerland from 1924 to 1927. In 1928, on emigrating to Australia, he brought 2 of them with him, lodged a patent for the design and proceeded to manufacture them.


title: Kayak

text: In 1942 the Australian Director of Military operations approached him to develop them for Military use. Orders were placed and eventually a total of 1024, notably the MKII & MKIII models, were produced by him and another enterprise, based on his 1942 patent (No. 117779)


title: Kayak

text: A kayak with pedals allows the kayaker to propel the vessel with a rotating propeller or underwater "flippers" rather than with a paddle. In contrast to paddling, kayakers who pedal kayaks use their legs rather than their arms. This allows for increased stamina and free hands while moving, making pedal kayaks popular among fishers.


title: Kayak

text: Traditional multi-hull vessels such as catamarans and outrigger canoes benefit from increased lateral stability without sacrificing speed, and these advantages have been successfully applied in twin hull kayaks. "Outrigger kayaks" attach one or two smaller hulls to the main hull to enhance stability, especially for fishing, touring, kayak sailing and motorized kayaking.


title: Kayak

text: Twin hull kayaks feature two long and narrow hulls, and since all their buoyancy is distributed as far as possible from their center line, they are more stable than mono hull kayaks outfitted with outriggers.


title: Kayak

text: While native people of the Arctic regions hunted rather than fished from kayaks, in recent years kayak sport fishing has become popular in both fresh and salt water, especially in warmer regions. Traditional fishing kayaks are characterized by wide beams of up to that increase their lateral stability. Some are equipped with outriggers that increase their stability, and others feature twin hulls enabling stand up paddling and fishing. Compared with motorboats, fishing kayaks are inexpensive and have few maintenance costs. Many kayak anglers like to customize their kayaks for fishing, a process known as 'rigging'.


title: Kayak

text: Kayaks were adapted for military use in the Second World War. Used mainly by British Commandos and special forces, principally the Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPPs), the Special Boat Service and the Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment. The latter made perhaps the best known use of them in the Operation Frankton raid on Bordeaux harbor. Both the Special Air Service (SAS) and the Special Boat Service (SBS) used kayaks for reconnaissance in the 1982 Falklands War. US Navy SEALs reportedly used them at the start of Unified Task Force operations in Somalia in 1992. The SBS currently use Klepper two-person folding kayaks that can be launched from surfaced submarines or carried to the surface by divers from submerged ones. They can be parachuted from transport aircraft at sea or dropped from the back of Chinook helicopters. US Special Forces have used Kleppers but now primarily use Long Haul folding kayaks, which are made in the US.


title: Kayak

text: The Australian Military MKII and MKIII folding kayaks were extensively used during WWII in the Pacific Theater for some 33 raids and missions on and around the South-East Asian islands. Documentation for this will be found in the National Archives of Australia official records, reference No. NAA K1214-123/1/06. They were deployed from disguised watercraft, submarines, Catalina aircraft, P.T. boats, motor launches and by parachute.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Ioanna "Nana" Mouskouri ( ) (born 13 October 1934) is a Greek singer. Over the span of her career, she has released over 200 albums in at least twelve languages, including Greek, French, English, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Hebrew, Welsh, Mandarin Chinese and Corsican.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri became well known throughout Europe for the song "The White Rose of Athens", recorded first in German as "Weiße Rosen aus Athen" as an adaptation of her Greek song "" ("San sfyríxeis tris forés", "When you whistle three times"). It became her first record to sell over one million copies.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Later in 1963, she represented Luxembourg at the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "À force de prier". Her friendship with the composer Michel Legrand led to the recording by Mouskouri of the theme song of the Oscar-nominated film "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg". From 1968 to 1976, she hosted her own TV show produced by BBC, "Presenting Nana Mouskouri". Her popularity as a multilingual television personality and distinctive image, owing to the then unusual signature black-rimmed glasses, turned Mouskouri into an international star.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: "Je chante avec toi Liberté", recorded in 1981, is perhaps her biggest hit to date, performed in at least five languages – French, English as "Song for Liberty", German as "Lied der Freiheit", Spanish as "Libertad" and Portuguese as "Liberdade". "Only Love", a song recorded in 1985 as the theme song of TV series "Mistral's Daughter", gained worldwide popularity along with its other versions in French (as "L'Amour en Héritage"), Italian (as "Come un'eredità"), Spanish (as "La dicha del amor"), and German (as "Aber die Liebe bleibt"). It became her only UK hit single when it reached number two in February 1986.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri became a spokesperson for UNICEF in 1993 and was elected to the European Parliament as a Greek deputy from 1994 to 1999.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 2015 she was awarded the Echo Music Prize for Outstanding achievements by the German music association Deutsche Phono-Akademie.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Nana Mouskouri's family lived in Chania, Crete, where her father, Constantine, worked as a film projectionist in a local cinema; her mother, Alice, worked in the same cinema as an usherette. When Mouskouri was three, her family moved to Athens.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri's family sent her and her older sister Eugenía (Jenny) to the Athens Conservatoire. Although Mouskouri had displayed exceptional musical talent from age six, Jenny initially appeared to be the more gifted sibling. Financially unable to support both girls' studies, the parents asked their tutor which one should continue. The sister conceded that Jenny had the better voice, but Nana was the one with the true inner need to sing. Mouskouri has said that a medical examination revealed she only has one functioning vocal cord and this could well account for her remarkable singing voice (in her younger years ranging from a husky, dark alto, which she later dropped, to a ringing coloratura mezzo), as opposed to her breathy, raspy speaking voice.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri's early childhood was marked by the German Nazi occupation of Greece. Her father became part of the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Athens. Mouskouri began singing lessons at age 12. As a child, she listened to radio broadcasts of singers including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Édith Piaf.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1950, she was accepted at the Conservatoire. She studied classical music with an emphasis on singing opera. After eight years at the Conservatoire, Mouskouri was encouraged by her friends to experiment with jazz music. She began singing with her friends' jazz group at night. However, when Mouskouri's Conservatory professor found out about Mouskouri's involvement with a genre of music that was not in keeping with her classical studies, he prevented her from sitting for her end-of-year exams. During an episode of "Joanna Lumley's Greek Odyssey", shown on the UK ITV channel in the autumn of 2011, Mouskouri told the actress Joanna Lumley how she had been scheduled to sing at the amphitheatre at Epidauros with other students of the Conservatoire, when upon arrival at the amphitheatre word came through from the Conservatoire in Athens that she had just been barred from participating in the performance there owing to her involvement in light music. Mouskouri subsequently left the Conservatoire and began performing at the Zaki club in Athens.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: She began singing jazz in nightclubs with a bias towards Ella Fitzgerald repertoire. In 1957, she recorded her first song, "Fascination", in both Greek and English for Odeon/EMI Greece. By 1958 while still performing at the Zaki, she met Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis. Hadjidakis was impressed by Nana's voice and offered to write songs for her. In 1959 Mouskouri performed Hadjidakis' "Κάπου υπάρχει η αγάπη μου" ("Kápou ipárchi i agápi mou", "Somewhere my love exists"; co-written with poet Nikos Gatsos) at the inaugural Greek Song Festival. The song won first prize, and Mouskouri began to be noticed.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: At the 1960 Greek Song Festival, she performed two more Hadjidakis compositions, "Τιμωρία" ("Timōría", "Punishment") and "Κυπαρισσάκι" ("Kyparissáki", "Little cypress"). Both these songs tied for first prize. Mouskouri performed Kostas Yannidis' composition, "Ξύπνα αγάπη μου" ("Xýpna agápi mou", "Wake up, my love"), at the Mediterranean Song Festival, held in Barcelona that year. The song won first prize, and she went on to sign a recording contract with Paris-based Philips-Fontana.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1961, Mouskouri performed the soundtrack of a German documentary about Greece. This resulted in the German-language single "Weiße Rosen aus Athen" ("White Roses from Athens"). The song was originally adapted by Hadjidakis from a folk melody. It became a success, selling over a million copies in Germany. The song was later translated into several languages and it went on to become one of Mouskouri's signature tunes.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri has been married twice: first at age 25, to Yorgos (George) Petsilas, a guitarist in her backing band (the trio "The Athenians") and the first man she had kissed. They had two children (Nicolas Petsilas in 1968 and Hélène (Lénou) Petsilas in 1970) but divorced when Mouskouri was 39. Not long after that, she started a relationship with her record producer André Chapelle, but they did not marry then because she "didn't want to bring another father into the family" and divorce was against her conservative upbringing. They eventually married on January 13, 2003, and live primarily in Switzerland.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1960, Mouskouri moved to Paris. She performed Luxembourg's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963, "À force de prier". Although the song achieved only eighth place in the contest, it achieved commercial success, and helped win her the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque in France. Mouskouri soon attracted the attention of French composer Michel Legrand, who composed two songs which became major French hits for her: "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" (1964) and an arrangement of Katherine K. Davis's "Carol of the Drum", "L'Enfant au Tambour" (1965).


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1962, she met Quincy Jones, who persuaded her to travel to New York City to record an album of American jazz titled "The Girl from Greece Sings". Following that she scored another hit in the United Kingdom with the song "My Colouring Book" (later included in her 1973 album "Songs from her TV series"). In 1965, she recorded her second English-language album to be released in the United States, entitled "Nana Sings". American singer Harry Belafonte heard and liked the album. Belafonte brought Mouskouri on tour with him through 1966. They teamed for a duo album entitled "An Evening With Belafonte/Mouskouri". During this tour, Belafonte suggested that Mouskouri remove her signature black-rimmed glasses when on stage. She was so unhappy with the request that she wanted to quit the show after only two days. Finally, Belafonte relented and respected her wish to perform while wearing glasses.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: On September 15, 1965, Mouskouri appeared for the first time on American television with Harry Belafonte on the "Danny Kaye Show". While on the show Mouskouri performed "Telalima" followed by "Σήκω χόρεψε κουκλί μου" ("Siko horepse koukli mou") accompanied by Harry Belafonte and Danny Kaye.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri's 1967 French album "Le Jour où la colombe" raised her to super-stardom in France. This album featured many of her French songs, "Au cœur de septembre", "Adieu Angélina", "Robe bleue, robe blanche" and the French pop classic "Le Temps des cerises". Mouskouri made her first appearance at Paris' legendary Olympia concert theatre the same year, singing French pop, Greek folk, and Hadjidakis numbers.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: These successes across Europe and elsewhere impressed Yvonne Littlewood, the BBC producer who had first met Mouskouri at the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest in London. Following several successful guest appearances on British TV after her Eurovision performance, the BBC then invited Mouskouri and her backing group, the Athenians, to start hosting a TV series called "Presenting… Nana Mouskouri" from 1968 onwards. A typical episode of her series would contain contemporary British, American and French pop and folk music, popular classical pieces, and the Greek songs which had originally made her famous. The shows also featured European and world music stars of the time as guests, making it one of the first BBC TV series to do so regularly. Despite the fact that stars from mainland Europe singing in languages other than English have tended to find it difficult to break into the British market, the series proved very popular with viewers of the new BBC-2 channel, and it ran until the mid-1970s. As well as performing songs known to the British audience in her shows, Mouskouri also welcomed the television audience, chatted to her guest stars and gave spoken introductions to her French and Greek songs in fluent English. These introductions, along with a modest stage presence and her bespectacled appearance, made her a very distinctive star, as Yvonne Littlewood later explained:


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1969, Mouskouri released a full-length British LP, "Over and over", which reached number 10 and spent 102 weeks in the UK album charts. This was the first of a series of English-language albums which, boosted by her TV appearances, sold extremely well in the UK and Ireland, as well as in other European countries, during the early 1970s, including "The exquisite Nana Mouskouri" (1969), "Turn on the sun" (1970), "A place in my heart" (1971) and "Presenting... Nana Mouskouri" (1973), while concerts from two of her British tours were also recorded and released as LPs: "British Concert" (1972) and "Live at the Albert Hall" (1974).


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri's international appeal encouraged the BBC to sell her programmes to television stations across the world, a fact which she acknowledged in a BBC interview in 2014:


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri also hosted her own shows for French and West German broadcasters during this period. At a time when TV programmes could attract huge audiences, her popularity as a multilingual television personality turned her into a truly international star.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Although music series such as hers were becoming less common on British TV as the 1970s wore on, the BBC continued to engage her regularly for one-off television specials and guest appearances on other programmes until the mid-1980s, by which time she had been a regular contributor to British TV for more than 20 years. Meanwhile, during the 1970s and 1980s, she expanded her concert tour to include her new fans, not only in the United Kingdom, but also in Ireland, New Zealand, Japan and Australia, where she met Frank Hardy, who followed her to the south of France in 1976.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In the 1970s, Mouskouri - always a prolific recording artist - recorded several LPs in German, including the hit albums, "Sieben schwarze Rosen" (1975) and "Lieder, die die Liebe schreibt" (1978). During the same period, she continued to release a series of top-selling records in France, such as "Comme un soleil" (1971), "Une voix qui vient du cœur" (1972), "Vieilles chansons de France" (1973), and "Quand tu chantes" (1976). Meanwhile, "Passport," a compilation including her most popular songs in English, reached number 3 in the UK album charts in 1976 and won for her a gold disc.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In August 1974, while in Australia, Mouskouri was presented with a plaque representing the sale of twenty Gold Records.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: As her fame began spreading outside her fan base in Europe, the United States, and the Commonwealth, Mouskouri was asked to record songs for the Japanese market. Meanwhile, in 1976, a renowned Taiwanese author, Echo, heard her music and introduced it to one of her female radio DJ friends. Mouskouri's records then became popular in Taiwan, especially among high school and college students, with one of her British albums, "Nana's book of songs" (1974) becoming particularly popular.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1979, Mouskouri released another English-language album named "Roses and Sunshine". This album consisted largely of folk and country material, and included work from sources including Neil Young, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan and John Denver. It was well received in Canada, and one of the album's tracks, "Even Now" (not the same song as the 1978 Barry Manilow hit), became a staple on beautiful music radio stations in the United States. She scored a worldwide hit in 1981 with "Je chante avec toi Liberté", which was translated into several languages after its success in France. The momentum from this album also helped boost her following German album, "Meine Lieder sind mein Leben". In 1984, Mouskouri returned to Greece and performed to a large audience at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus; her first performance in her homeland since 1962.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1985, Mouskouri recorded "Only Love", the theme song to the British TV series "Mistral's Daughter" – based upon the novel by Judith Krantz – which reached number 2 in the UK charts. The song was also a hit in its other versions: "L'Amour en Héritage" (French), "Come un'eredità" (Italian), "La dicha del amor" (Spanish), and "Aber die Liebe bleibt" (German). The German version was also recorded with an alternate set of lyrics under the title "Der wilde Wein" but was withdrawn in favour of "Aber die Liebe bleibt".


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: That same year, Mouskouri made a play for the Spanish-language market with the hit single "Con Toda el Alma". The song was a major success in Spain, Argentina and Chile.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: She released five albums in different languages in 1987, and the following year returned to her classical conservatory roots with the double LP "The Classical Nana" (a.k.a. "Nana Classique"), which featured adaptations of classical songs and excerpts from opera. By the end of 1987, she had performed a series of concerts in Asia, including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri's 1991 English album, "Only Love: The Best of Nana Mouskouri", became her best-selling release in the United States. She spent much of the 1990s touring the globe. Among her early 1990s albums were spiritual music, "Gospel" (1990), the Spanish-language "Nuestras Canciones", the multilingual, Mediterranean-themed "Côté Sud, Côté Coeur" (1992), "Dix Mille Ans Encore", "Falling in Love Again: Great Songs From the Movies". "Falling in Love" featured two duets with Harry Belafonte.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1993, Mouskouri recorded the album "Hollywood". Produced by Michel Legrand it was a collection of famous songs from films, and served not only as a tribute to the world of cinema, but also as a personal reference to childhood memories of sitting with her father in his projection room in Crete.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: She recorded several more albums over 1996 and 1997, including the Spanish "Nana Latina" (which featured duets with Julio Iglesias and Mercedes Sosa), the English-language "Return to Love", and the French pop classics, "Hommages". In 1997, she staged a high-profile "Concert for Peace" at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. This concert was later released as an album, and aired as a TV special on PBS in the United States.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in October 1993. She took over from the previous ambassador, the recently deceased actress Audrey Hepburn. Mouskouri's first U.N. mission took her to Bosnia to draw attention to the plight of children affected by the Bosnian war. She went on to give a series of fund-raising concerts in Sweden and Belgium.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: She was a Member of the European Parliament for Greece through the centre-right New Democracy party from 1994 until 1999, when she resigned from her position as an MEP. Several reasons have been given for the resignation, one being her pacifism, and another being that she felt ill-equipped for the day-to-day work of a politician.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Mouskouri lives in Switzerland with Chapelle, and, until her final performance in 2008, performed hundreds of concerts every year throughout her career. In 2004, her French record company released a 34-CD box set of more than 600 of Mouskouri's mostly French songs. In 2006 she made a guest appearance at that year's Eurovision Song Contest which was held, for the first time ever, in her native Greece.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In the same year, she announced her plans to retire. From 2005 until 2008, she conducted a farewell concert tour of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, South America, the United States, and Canada. On July 23 and 24, 2008, Mouskouri gave her two final 'Farewell Concert' performances at the ancient Herodes Atticus Theatre, in Athens, Greece, before a packed stadium, including Greece's Prime Minister and Athens mayor, plus the mayors of Berlin, Paris and Luxembourg, along with fans from around the world and thousands of her Athenian admirers.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 2010, in response to the financial crisis in Greece, Mouskouri announced that she would forgo her pension to contribute to the country's recovery. She commented: "Everywhere I see stories about my country going bankrupt. And people are aggressive about it. It's frightening. And it's painful for me. Nobody wants their country to be treated badly. It's frustrating and very sad."


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In late 2011, Mouskouri released two newly recorded CDs, the first featuring songs of the Greek Islands, recorded with other Greek singers, and the second featuring duets with French contemporaries. In late November 2011 Mouskouri sang again at a single concert, with guests, in Berlin, commemorating the 50th anniversary of her hit single "The White Rose of Athens". She then did a concert tour in Germany in 2012. At age 80, she embarked on a three-year Happy Birthday Tour and in 2018 had booked a five-month Forever Young Tour through parts of Europe and North America.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 2015 she was awarded with the Echo Music Prize for Outstanding achievements by the German music association Deutsche Phono-Akademie.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: The British comedian Benny Hill impersonated Mouskouri on "The Benny Hill Show". Wearing a long dress, large glasses and long black hair, he talked and sang with a slow and quiet voice. He introduced a song with a long translation into English of all the events supposedly mentioned in the song... and then sang just a single line of "Greek".


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Andrea Martin played Mouskouri in a sketch, 'The Nana Mouskouri Story', during the 1981–1982 season of "SCTV" (later included in a DVD compilation).


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1976, Ronnie Barker performed a song in drag as a parody of Mouskouri in "The Two Ronnies" as Nana Moussaka. Mouskouri was also parodied in the first episode of the 1970s New Zealand political satire "A Week Of It".


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1991, British comedienne Victoria Wood mentioned Mouskouri in her original song, "The Reincarnation Song." The song was included in Wood's television special of that year, "Victoria Wood: Sold Out".


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In the "Ed, Edd n Eddy" episode "O-Ed-Eleven", Eddy's brother is shown to have a Nana Mouskouri poster in his old bedroom.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: Karl Pilkington included Mouskouri as a clue in his contest 'Rockbusters', part of the radio show "The Ricky Gervais Show" on XFM. Broadcasting on December 31, 2005, the clue was "Me granny's taking a penalty. She better get the ball in the back of the net," initials (NM) = Nana Mouskouri (nanna must score 'ere). Gervais described this clue as "one of his best clues ever."


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 2015, Liina Vahtrik parodied her song "Only Love" on the Estonian version of "Your Face Sounds Familiar".


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In the UK, Mouskouri performed quite successfully. Her 1976 release titled "Passport" was certified Gold while her 1977 album "The Magic of Nana Mouskouri" also attained Gold status a year after it was released. She also had two other silver certified albums, "Alone" (1986) and "At Her Very Best" (2001).


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In France, Mouskouri achieved her first gold certification in 1995 with her 1987 release titled "Nana Mouskouri 1". Three years after, she scored her second Gold record with her 1987 album "Master Serie Vo. 1".


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In Germany, Mouskouri has six albums that received certifications from BVMI. Her best selling album in the country is "Nana Mouskouri In New York" which received 5× Gold in 2015 for selling over 750,000 in Germany. Other albums that received 1× Gold certification includes the albums "Die schönsten deutschen Weihnachtslieder", "Lieder, die die Liebe schreibt", "Alles Liebe", "Die Welt ist voll Licht" and "Sieben schwarze Rosen".


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In the US, her album titled "Only Love - The Best of Nana Mouskouri" charted and peaked at #141 on Billboard 200, spending six weeks on chart. This is her highest charting project in the country. In 2007, "I'll Remember You" peaked at #22 on Billboard Traditional Jazz Albums and #42 on Billboard Jazz Albums. In 1998, "Concert for Peace" peaked at #7 on Billboard World Albums and charted for six weeks.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In Canada, "Je Chante Avec Toi Liberte" was certified platinum in 1985 for selling over 100,000 copies in the country. Her 2018 and most recent album "Forever Young" debuted at #73 on Billboard Canadian Albums.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 2015, Echo Awards honored Mouskouri with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her undeniable impact and legacy.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1992, Spin Magazine included Mouskouri on their list of "7 chart-toppers you won't see on MTV" and stated that Mouskouri sells two million records each year worldwide and has released about 800 albums in seven different languages.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: In 1996, Platinum Europe Awards handed Mouskouri a special award saying "Europe is a great musical culture". She also received a Golden Disc Award for "Weisse Rosen Aus Athen" and became the first Philip artist to reach one million sales.


title: Nana Mouskouri

text: The single titled "White Roses from Athens” was released in 1961, which stayed at number 1 on the charts for 39 weeks and sold more than 1.5 million copies within six months.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Mackenzie Lynne Dern Santos (born March 24, 1993) is an American professional mixed martial artist and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. She is a former world No. 1 ranked IBJJF competitor, currently ranked 6th among the female divisions. She is an ADCC and no gi BJJ (black belt) World Champion. As of November 8, 2022, she is #7 in the UFC women's strawweight rankings.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern was born in Arizona, the daughter of Wellington "Megaton" Dias, a highly decorated grappling competitor himself. As a child, she grew up travelling back and forth between Arizona and her father's native Brazil. Dern is fluent in English and Portuguese. She has stated that Portuguese has become her primary tongue, explaining that "my Dad and step Mom are both Brazilian. My boyfriend speaks Portuguese. I'm speaking Portuguese more than English. I still have lots of interactions in English of course. But I think in Portuguese, anything to do with fight is all in Portuguese in my mind, I dream in Portuguese."


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern began training by the age of three and practicing with her father and stepmother who is also a black belt, Luciana Tavares. Mackenzie started competing at a young age, and began competing in the adult divisions at 14 years old. She has won a world championship in every belt level as she progressed to black belt rank, which was awarded to her by her father in December 2012, three months prior to her 20th birthday. She graduated from Ironwood High School in Glendale, Arizona.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Due to her six 1st place finishes at the Asian Open, Mackenzie is the only female Jiu-Jitsu competitor to have won Gold Medals, at Black Belt level, at each of the 5 principal/highest ranking IBJJF Gi Championships - the other events are the Worlds, the Euros, the Pan Ams and the Brazilian Nationals. One of her biggest achievements in BJJ came when she managed to defeat Gabi Garcia despite a huge weight difference, becoming one of the few women to do so.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern was scheduled to make her mixed martial arts debut against Kenia Rosas at Legacy FC 58. She won her debut by unanimous decision.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern was scheduled to fight Montana De La Rosa at Legacy FC 61. The bout was initially scheduled to be contested at strawweight, but was later changed to catchweight, as Dern missed weight by 2.8 lbs. She won the fight by a first round submission.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern was scheduled to fight Katherine Roy at . Dern came in overweight for the second time in a row, missing weight by four pounds, and had to forfeit 20% of her purse. She won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern moved up to flyweight for her fourth professional fight, being scheduled to fight Mandy Polk at . She beat Polk by a first-round rear-naked choke.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: After going 4–0 in her first four professional fights, Dern signed with Invicta Fighting Championship in November 2017.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern made her Invicta debut on December 8, 2017, at against Kaline Medeiros. She won the fight via an armbar in round three.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern made her promotional debut against Ashley Yoder on March 3, 2018, at UFC 222. She won the fight via split decision.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern faced Amanda Cooper on May 12, 2018 at UFC 224. At the weigh-ins, Dern weighed in at 123 pounds, 7 pounds over the strawweight non-title fight upper limit of 116 pounds. As a result, the bout proceeded at catchweight and Dern was fined 30% of her purse. Dern won the fight via submission through a rear naked choke in the first round.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: After a hiatus from maternity leave, Dern faced Amanda Ribas on October 12, 2019 at UFC on ESPN+ 19. She lost the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern was expected to face Ariane Carnelossi on April 25, 2020 at UFC Fight Night 173. Carnelossi was forced to withdraw from the bout due to travel restriction.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern was scheduled to face Hannah Cifers on April 25, 2020. However, on April 9 the promotion announced that this event was postponed. The pairing eventually took place on May 30, 2020 at . Dern won the fight with a first round kneebar - becoming the first woman to finish a fight by any form of leg lock in UFC history. This win also earned her her first "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern faced Randa Markos on September 19, 2020 at UFC Fight Night 178. She won the fight via submission in the first round. This win earned her her second straight "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern faced Virna Jandiroba on December 12, 2020 at UFC 256. Dern won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern faced Nina Nunes on April 10, 2021 at UFC on ABC 2. She won the bout via first round armbar. This win earned her a Performance of the Night award.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern faced Marina Rodriguez on October 9, 2021 on UFC Fight Night 194. She lost the fight via unanimous decision. This fight earned her the "Fight of the Night "award.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern faced Tecia Torres on April 9, 2022 at UFC 273. Dern defeated Torres in a close bout by split decision.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Dern faced Yan Xiaonan on October 1, 2022 at UFC Fight Night 211. She lost the bout via majority decision.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: In February 2019, Dern announced that she had put her MMA career on hold due to pregnancy. Her daughter, Moa, was born on June 9, 2019.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: According to Dern, she left Black House MMA after a reported incident concerning her original coach, Juan Gomez, where he got into a physical altercation with her husband over a disagreement about money. However, Gomez disputed money being the reason and subsequently both Dern and Gomez were asked to leave the team.


title: Mackenzie Dern

text: Mitsuyo "Count Koma" Maeda → Carlos Gracie, Sr. → Helio Gracie → Royler Gracie → Wellington "Megaton" Dias → Mackenzie Dern


title: Stefano Pioli

text: Stefano Pioli (; born 20 October 1965) is an Italian football manager and a former footballer who played as a defender. He is the head coach at Serie A club AC Milan, whom he led to the Serie A title in 2022.


title: Stefano Pioli

text: Pioli, a native of Parma, started his own playing career for his home city team, Parma. Successively, he was signed by Juventus, with whom he made his Serie A debut in 1984, winning the league title, the European Cup, the European Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup during his three seasons with the club. After being sold to Hellas Verona in 1987, Pioli moved to Fiorentina in 1989, where he spent six years of his career, before spending two seasons with Padova. After successive season-long spells in Serie C with Pistoiese and Fiorenzuola, he ended his career in 1999 with Colorno of Eccellenza Emilia-Romagna (the sixth-highest level of Italian football at that time; the top level of the Emilia-Romagna regional league system), playing alongside his brother Leonardo.


title: Stefano Pioli

text: An elegant, tenacious, physical, and mobile defender, Pioli was capable of playing anywhere along the back-line, although he performed best as a man-marking centre-back, or "stopper," in Italian. Considered to be a promising and consistent player in his youth, his career was affected by numerous serious injuries.


title: Stefano Pioli

text: From 1999 to 2002 Pioli coached Bologna's youth team (winning a championship with Allievi Nazionali's team), and Chievo's in 2002–03. In 2003–04, he was appointed as head coach of Serie B club Salernitana. He moved to Modena, still of Serie B, in 2004.