From Reuters: Briton to recreate first African circumnavigation.

British sailor Philip Beale aims to rewrite a bit of African history by sailing round the continent in a boat built with the same materials he believes the Phoenicians used 2,500 years ago to make the same trip.

Built of Aleppo pine and using wooden dowels to hold it together, the 21-metre-long "Phoenicia" powered by wind and muscle will set out down the Suez Canal on August 6 and Beale aims to complete the 15,000-mile clockwise journey 10 months later.

"The Europeans think it was Portuguese explorer Bartholomew Dias who did it first. But I think the Phoenicians did it 2,000 years earlier and I want to prove it," Beale told Reuters in an interview on Monday. [continue]