Talk:Donald Attig

Constructive Discussion Please

Please understand that the placement of tags on the article are not an indictment of Mr. Attig or his accomplishments; rather, they are meant to highlight areas where improvements to the article can be made. Clearly, those who have responded to the tags have taken them to be a personal assault on Mr. Attig and his feats; this is not the case. Your full-throated defenses of him are admirable, but are unnecessary and not particularly germane. The purpose of the tags is to elicit a constructive discussion of how the article can be made better. You'll please note that no one has tagged the article for removal. Mr. Attig's wikipedia legacy, such as it is, is in no jeopardy. However, Wikipedia is meant to be objective and relevant, and the tenor of the responses on this page, much like the tone of the article, is most certainly not objective. Can we please bear in mind that this is meant to be a constructive forum? Histrionics (cf "I must say this seems like I have been translated into a remake of the movie 'GROUNDHOG'S DAY'") are best left at the digital door. To facilitate a constructive discussion, I am creating sub-sections below for specific issues with the article. Of course, add topics as you see fit Please do try to place your comments in the appropriate section and confine them to the issue at hand AND PLEASE DO NOT TAKE ANY OF THIS PERSONALLY. Let's all be civilDhoruba (talk) 04:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC) If the "Groundhogs day" remark was out of order mia culpa!!! It came about because we have been through this previously and the answers to your questions are scattered throughout the discussion thread.Previous editors also addressed questions which had already been dealt with on the thread. I will grant you 100% that I’m not that familiar with this whole process. The original author is doing a compilation biography of Senior Citizens who have made outstanding achievements in their twilight years in which Mr. Attig will be included and also a biography of Mr. Attig alone. The author has all the research material in her office in Cork City. Unfortunately for this article she has been on assignment in several parts of the world since this was entered and has not been able to access her material to address the questions. Originally one of her friends did the first bit of editing by sorting out the footnotes. I got caught up in the whole thing accidentally but became interested to the point that I’ve contacted the original author, and her friend. I’ve also made numerous calls to the United States to verify some of the items included in the article. Once the tags had been removed I thought I could go back to my own projects, business and leisure boating addiction. When I saw the tags up again (in the midst of the Post Holiday Chaos) it did blow my mind. I’m sorry my remarks were out of order and beg your indulgence in my ignorance. I will see what I can do on the items you have put in. I do hope the original author will get back to her Cork office sometime in the 21st century so that I can feel comfortable that someone else is standing in the gap for this article. Bill Hogan (talk) 19:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Issues For Discussion

Benchmark Records

The article states that Mr. Attig set "International Benchmark records in the fields of Endurance Challenge and Adventure Challenge." I am not familiar with what organization tracks these records or what "Endurance Challenge" or "Adventure Challenge" categories are or entail. Please help me to understand. If they are not official categories but rather descriptive terms, inasmuch as the navigation required endurance and was an adventure, then the should probably not be capitalized or represented as categories Also, what is meant by benchmark record? That Mr. Attig was the first to attempt this?Dhoruba (talk) 04:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC) Friend Dhoruba - tust after my apology I can use that greeting.A benchmark record is the original record set in any event/category. It is what future attempts are measured against. If a future effort betters the original it then becomes the benchmark. In this case Mr. Attig’s successful efforts were the first known attempts and beyond any reasonable doubt the first successful attempts in all three cases. Benchmark is often written as two words rather than one as in bench mark. My understanding of the rules of grammar as taught to me in University is that colloquial usage is considered correct in these matters. The original author used the combined word. Since she is a professional I did not question this form of the term. Endurance Challenge and Adventure Challenge are recognized fields of achievement. They are often discussed as such in the media and RTE did have a series of programs devoted to such. Adventure Challenge is a category as is Endurance Challenge. In some cases they both apply to a single event such as the recent trek to the Pole which was described as both over RTE news. Mr. Attig’s feat on the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers featured on one of programs and the presenter used the occasion to announce the upcoming first ever attempt to complete the Shannon Navigation and possibly beyond in an engineless live aboard vessel. There are many biographies in Wikipedia built around firsts in one or both of these fields. A few of them have been cited in the discussion thread. It seemed appropriate to the original author to capitalize these words. They do have great significance in the field of human endeavour. It also seems to me that they should be capitalized. Many categories of human endeavour do not have a specific organization tracking them and are still considered to be categories; just as many arts do not have degrees associated with them but are still recognised as specific arts requiring a high level of skill. However if you strongly feel that Wikipedia is somehow demeaned by the use of capitol letters I will change that if you reply to this with a request to do so. The author did give me a great deal of latitude when I agreed to watch the site in her absence. Please understand that she may, as a professional, decide to restore the capitols. That I have no control over. Bill Hogan (talk) 20:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Personal Details

The article includes several personal details that, while ostensibly true, may not be verifiable or relevant to the article. For example, the laundry list of Mr. Attig's occupations (midwife, janitor, etc.) do not seem to relate to the reason he deserves an article in the first place - the shannon navigations. More examples of this include the fact that he gave a yacht to his friend R.D."Buck" Wrightam. These sorts of details seem unnecessary.Dhoruba (talk) 04:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC) I admit that I’m not your highly experience whizbang editor type. I have read all the articles refered to in the thread and a great many more in Wikipedia and have been reading encyclopedias for a long time. If I told you my age when my parents purchased my first encyclopedia (a Britanica Jr.) you would not believe I could have read it then. In both Wikipedia and the paper encyclopedias I have often noticed many personal details in Biographical articles. E.G. In the Wikipedia article, Joshua Slocum even Italic textSlocum’s father’s opposition to the Civil War is mentioned as are his polotics and religion. His maternal grandfather’s profession is noted. The fact that after his father took up boot making Joshua helped him but liked the smell of salt air more than shoe leather. I could go on and on but the whole article is there for anyone to read – and it is not tagged. If you have read this article carefully you will see that the Wrightam segment is intrisically tied up with the records Attig established in his 70’s. Wrightam is the one who encouraged Attig to go where others hadn't been able to. Attig did and at the end of the effort he gave Wrightam the boat which he built for the effort which Wrightam inspired him to undertake. There are many biographies in Wikipeda about people who were to first to complete and adventure and or endurance challenge – and especially those that had an element of great personal danger involved as all 3 of these challenges did. If the things which I recognize you as being genuinly concerned about need to be deleted from this article then many bios in Wikipedia, Britanica, Colliers etc should be heavily edited. It does seem that this article has every right to include items which are of a type included in many untagged Wikipedia articles. Have you read all the discussions in the tread? If not please take to time to do so as this is a rehash of the earlier. Thank you for looking into these things and God bless! Bill Hogan (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Neutral POV

Please, everyone familiarize themselves with WP:NPV, as it is relevant for many of the issues in this article. It will help us have a more productive discussion about the merits of content re: wikipedia's guidelines. In particular, paragraph 4 et seq. of WP:UNDUEWEIGHT seems relevant.Dhoruba (talk) 04:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC) At this point I would ask you to carefully read all the thread then at the very least read the untagged Joshua Slocum article in this encyclopedia. When you have done that and in light of that article please do explain why it the undueweight applies to this article. You might also look at the Teliga and other articles quoted before. It seems to me and I think seems to others also that this article does measure favourably with many other wikipedia articles. Thanks Bill Hogan (talk) 21:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I just can’t believe that this is up in the air again. It seems that some of the editors have not compared this article to others which have been in Wikipedia for years. After reading Hogan’s response to the most recent attack I went to the Slocum article he mentioned. It is obvious from that article, which is not tagged that this article should be left alone. I noticed that there is even a picture of the school which Slocum attended as a child. There are also sections on different phases of his life. This Biography is very interesting and shows that romance and adventure have not passed off the face of the earth. It is both informative and interesting. As a boater, who has traveled Ireland’s waterways I can’t believe that anyone would try, much less successfully complete these feats. I know of no other yachtsman or boater who would even think about attempting to duplicate any one of the three primary events described in the article. The man is old enough to be my grandfather and even my senior GAA son says he wouldn’t have the strength and endurance to accomplish what this senior citizen did to establish these records. How about giving this article some fair play? For God's sake the subject has established Benchmark records and acheived outstanding things in various walks of life. Boatwife Mary (talk) 15:50, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• Comparison to other articles is moot. Just because other poor articles exist does not mean that this article should not be improved. The article is also not to be sentimental (romance and adventure off the earth, etc...). It is meant to summarize why Donald Attig is noteworthy and relevant details of that notoriety. Please do not take this personally. No one is attacking Mr. Attig and there is nothing "unfair" about suggesting that this article be improvedDhoruba (talk) 04:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Oy !!! What’s going on here? I don’t understand why this article gets attacked again and again. If it should not stand then a h--- of a lot of articles in Wikipedia should be taken out including a whole raft of articles that have been in it for years. Many of the issues tagged have already be tagged settled and untagged. The tags just don’t make sense to me after reading the whole article several times and comparing it with a lot of other Wikipedia articles. Just to highlight one tag that does not seem valid to me in light of other articles I’d like to bring up the confusing or unclear bit. There bios on all sorts of people in Wikipedia. - Chemists, physicists, engineers, inventors, and so forth. By their nature many of these bios include terms, phrases and so forth which relate to the field of the subject of the Bio. These terms, phrases etc. many not be fully understandable to people not familiar with the subjects field of achievement. The very nature of such articles in Wikipedia, the Encyclopaedia Britannica or any such reference work demands some use of terms which relate to the subject. Most homes have a reasonably good dictionary and as far as I know all computers have a search engine which can bring up definitions of words and phrases. It’s about time that this article is left alone. It has brought encouragement and enjoyment to a lot of people and will continue to encourage people to go for it – especially older people. When I first read it I was in a situation that really had me down. After reading it I knew there was a h--- of a lot of life to live yet! I've been defending it ever since. I came to the article because I was editing another article and saw a link to it and realized this was a dude I heard on Radio Kerry. He was being congratulated for setting records - doing things on the Shannon that people had previously considered impossible. I just don't understand this. If this guy was the fist person to swim some channel, river or something no one would have a problem with the article. What he did is a h--- of a lot harder than just swimming! Lets have a little balance here. Kerry camera spy (talk) 17:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• First, see above in response to Boatwife Mary; the existence of other poor articles on Wikipedia is no excuse for not improving this one. The confusing/unclear tag is not lexical; rather, the article is written in a very confusing manner, with lack of context for important terms (i still don't know what an "adventure challenge category" is, which is important to the article). Also, the purpose of the article is not to inspire; there are whole sections in bookstores for that and plenty of other website to boot. See the above response to Boatwife Mary re: the purpose of the article. Great, Don Attig did some cool stuff. Some of it is even worthy of wikipedia, but it is not currently presented well and there is still, in my opinion, quite a bit of chaff amongst this wheat. I welcome everyone's constructive assistance in remedying this. Dhoruba (talk) 04:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I must say this seems like I have been translated into a remake of the movie GROUNDHOG'S DAY. The original author of the article is an international Journalist and photo Journalist and is often out of Ireland on assignment and seems to be thus engaged at present as I'm getting no answer, so I will try to address the points raised on Dec. 12 by Dhoruba. I don't really know where to begin but will try to wade through all of your points.

FORMATTED LINKS: When another editor spent an entire long day inserting footnotes into the text at the request and as a favor to the original editor/author of the article he also set up direct links to the Wordpress site. Because Wikipedia does not allow direct links to that site the links to the appropriate portion of the site AND (I REPEAT AND) ALL (YES ALL) the work he did on footnotes was removed with a note that the link to the Wordpress site was not allowed but he should feel free to put his other work back in again. As a result of that rather painful lesson none of those working on the site since want to fall into the same trap. Hence the links are the way they are. No one wants all the work they have done to be deleted. I hope you can understand that. Anyone who becomes interested in the material in the article, (a great many people already have) can access a great deal of additional information and see a virtual photograph journal of these events by going to the Wordpress site, thus it is noted just as a book about the efforts would be noted, even if it were written by the participants. (Slocum’s books are noted in the article about him)

• These links were removed by a bot because the domain they link to is generally inappropriate for wikipedia; however, there are exceptions which may apply (see WP:Reliable_sources#Self-published_and_questionable_sources. This should be discussed further in the context of wikipedia's guidelines. Regardless, it is unquestionably inappropriate for the links to be in their current format.

RECORDS: The two Shannon Events and the Erne Event are not just records; they are benchmark records. The Shannon events were planned and discussed with boat clubs, rowing clubs, members of the IWAI, Yachtsmen and journalists, Seascapes (Ireland’s Maritime program) radio program hosts and others from 1995 until the first implementation in 2007. Leading up to the 2007 event the attempt by Donald Attig and Jack Donovan to establish this new benchmark record, The Inland Waterways Association of Ireland, Waterways Ireland, the Irish Coast Guard, various rowing and yacht clubs, and Seascapes were all informed of the pending attempt to establish a benchmark record by being the first crew to take an ENGINELESS boat, with live aboard capability, the entire length of the Shannon Navigation and possibly beyond into the Sea Estuary. This had never been attempted since the emergence of the Shannon in its present form with the construction of the Ardnacrusha dam. The pending attempt to establish a benchmark record was formally announced on The Big Adventure, (program 8, produced by Garrett Daily and presented by Malcolm Magan) by Andy Jordan, secretary to the Lough Derg Branch of the IWAI in a notice to members, on the Irish Rambler Radio Program from 1550 WNTN in the USA, Dan Hallissey producer/presenter, at a special ceremony (attended by a group of dignitaries) in the Lord Mayor of Cork’s Official Chambers, in many newspaper articles in the USA and Ireland and on several radio shows. The event was witnessed and monitored by members of the IWAI, employees of Waterways Ireland, the Irish Coast Guard, and the many pleasure and commercial boaters using the Shannon system. The Lough Derg Branch of IWAI and the IWAI Cruising Club gave special recognition to the crew for their record establishing efforts. The Cruising Club flotilla was on hand at the completion of the effort and staged a celebration, including the awarding of a special plaque. The effort was covered by local press in route and a running commentary on the 1550 WNTN radio station in the USA. At the end of the widely publicized and witnessed effort Attig and Donovan had established new benchmark records in both Adventure Challenge and Endurance Challenge categories, just as Joshua Slocum established a new benchmark records in the same categories when he completed his single handed navigation of the world in 1898. Since then others have followed in his footsteps, some of whom also have Biography articles included in Wikipedia.

To date the only engineless transit of the Shannon Navigation and beyond by a crew has been Attig and Donovan’s BENCHMARK ESTABLISHING efforts in 2007. In 2008 Attig completed virtually the same course single handed in the same engineless live-aboard boat, thus setting new and separate records. In addition to wide coverage in the press and on the Radio, RTE did a segment about his single handed challenge of the Shannon. To date no one has attempted to duplicate or better Attig’s Benchmark record for the single handed transit.

These widely publicized and witnessed events created so much interest and excitement that when Attig launched his 2009 Benchmark establishing effort Her Excellency Priscilla Jana, the Ambassador from South Africa traveled from Dublin to Belturbet to officiate at the boat’s launching. (The Cork County Mayor had earlier held a kick off program in the Cork County Chambers) The head of publicity for Waterways Ireland attended the launching ceremony as did the Chairman of Belturbet Town Council, members of the Town and County Councils, representatives of the rental boat industry, a representative of the North West Regional Tourism body, the Border Regional Authority and the EU Committee of the Regions and two internationally acalimed artists, and Rowan Hand the Television and Radio Presenter and Newspaper columnist, who presented Attig with a special award from Dr. W.G. O’Hare Ambassador to HRH Prince of Wales for Corporate Responsibility Northern Ireland,. Since Attig became the first person to transit the entire Erne Navigation in an Engineless liveaboard boat no one has attempted to duplicate or better his effort.

It will take an unique person or crew to challenge any of these three BENCHMARK ESTABLISHING efforts. They require an extreme amount of skill and endurance. Additionally they are frought with danger and any person/persons attempting to duplicate these benchmark establishing efforts could well forfit their lives in the process. This latter deterent partially expalins why no attempted these feats before the efforts discribed above. Prior to the 2007 Record Establishing effort the universal opinion of knowledgeable, experienced boaters was that an engineless transit of the Shannon in a liveaboard boat was utterly impossible.

Now that it has been done it is inevitable that in the future a person or persons will attempt to duplicate or better one or more of these records. This will happen just as people followed in the footsteps of Joshua Slocum, when he proved that a singlehanded sailor could navigate the world, or Hillary and Norgay proved that the summit of Everest could be reached and became the kick starter for many expiditions. No matter how many people eventually complete this dangerous and extreme endurance and adventure challenge fete Attig and Donovan will be the only ones who can claim to be first. (I doubt seriously that anyone over the age of 70 will make the attempt, which will leave Attig as the first and oldest) All 3 of their efforts were much better publisized and witnessed than Slocum’s Benchmark record, and many other such feats which are recorded in Wikipedia as the core of a Biographical article.

When any person becomes the first to take on an adventure challenge which requires a high degree of skill and endurance and is frought with genuine danger (especially if the task is considered to be an impossible challenge) they have established a benchmark record for others to follow. There are many examples of this in Wikipedia a few of which are already mentioned in the disscussions about this article.

ARTICLE LENGTH AND STYLE There are many Biography articles in Wikipedia of a similar length about less complex persons. i.e. The housing system Attig amazed the world of fabricated houses with, could be a stand alone article and certainly deserves to be included in a biographacal article. This man has been doing things all others thought to be impossible for over a half century. Not a few of these accomplishments laid the ground work for these new Benchmark records he established in his 70’s. Just as the many things mentioned in the Wikipedia Slocum article are all part of what preparied the man for his outstanding and notable acheivments. I will print the Joshua Slocum Article out and see if I can’t tailor this article to read more like it does.

• I am of the strong opinion that this article is far too long and detailed given the subject matter. It seems like you all know Mr. Attig personally and so perhaps take umbrage at the notion that the entirety of his life is not worthy of inclusion on wikipedia; however, please do bear in mind that Mr. Attig's notoriety is due primarily to his various navigational efforts and that most of the article should accordingly focus on this. Please, everyone, read WP:NPV.Dhoruba (talk) 04:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I have been trying without success to contact the original author of this article ever since I saw the tags and have had no success. I strongly suspect that she is on assignment overseas on a jouralistic assignment. All the information and material for the upcoming biography is in one of the Author’s two residence/office locations. (Dublin/Cork) Since the Author does not seem to be available I will wade in and take up the defense again. I do know she was in England and has an assignment on the West Coast of the USA directly after the holidays. Perhaps she will surface here in transit and can take over the defense of her article. After a protracted go around (during which I even made many calls to the USA) between Eleutherius, against and several for he put in the following which I’m sure you have read.

I actually am Irish as it happens. And Mr Attig is a "yank" ....Im going to take off the notability banner as i think ive been proven wrong on most fronts. It does need to be edited but thats grand. Please dont be scared off by my thoughts. You have made a fine article and well researched it was too. Happy holidays to you Mr Hogan.Eleutherius (talk) 18:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I did try to edit out spelling and other errors as he mentioned that the article needed to be edited. I will now try to use the Slocum article as a guideline for more editing – unless the original author becomes available. If that happens I will be delighted to let her have at it. In the meantime may one and all have a blessed and happy Advent Season. Bill Hogan (talk) 20:07, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Article Issues

Assuming that the article meets notability standards (which is not clear, but has been hashed out below), it requires substantial cleanup. The article does not have an objective tone and requires serious copy editing. The effusive praise for Mr. Attig seems inappropriate. Links are not formatted correctly (e.g. Details and photographs of this Benchmark establishing effort can be found on the "About" tab on the following web site: www.donattig.wordpress.com). This article seems like it should be about 20% of its current size. Thoughts, fellow editors? Dhoruba (talk) 02:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Benchmark Records

Are these actual records that are recorded by a professional oversight organization? There is no mention of what actually makes these records and a quick google search does not elucidate the issue. I'm inclined to resurrect the notability discussion if this is the case.Dhoruba (talk) 01:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Notability

"Donald Attig's Shannon Challenge 2008 " is a noteworthy and world class record and fully deserves to be in this wikki......had he been a young man of 25 it would have been an awsome feat but he did it when he was 73.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Micktheclick2 (talk • contribs) 17:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I added the notability to this page cause i aint sure that it is a notable enough person for wikipedia. The main thing this man has done of wiki note worthyness is the shannon events but this is in my opinion not notable enough for wikipedia. ( my hat goes off to the man otherwise. He seems to have lived an extraordianry life - just not one that is wikipedia material.) 19:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Dear editor. I do find your thoughts that the “Shannon events” (along with other events in Attig's life) are not suitable for inclusion difficult to reconcile with the standards of many other articles I’ve read in Wikipedia over the years. I am convinced your comments and actions were made in all sincerity but without an understanding of what was involved in the “Shannon Events” as you call them and the Erne Navigation which you did not mention.

The 3 first time ever adventure/endurance efforts on their own, if it is understood what they involve, are more than enough to justify inclusion in Wikipedia. In my opinion even the 2007 entry alone justifies an entry. Anyone, who doesn’t think so, should try rowing ton of weight for over 400 kilometres against prevailing wind and through over 30 bridges with narrow passages. After doing so they would know that such a feat requires more skill and stamina than is required to sail across an ocean or around the world single-handed. There are numerous articles about single-handed sailors in Wikipedia. A quick check today verified they are still in Wikipedia. The Shannon navigations and even the Erne were feats that most fit athletes in their 20’s and 30’s would not attempt and could not complete without great knowledge of boats and the navigation of river hazards.

To even attempt such a strenuous long term endurance feat as a Senior Citizen is outstanding and ranks very high on the all time list of Senior Citizen feats. I would guess that anyone not understanding the significance of these efforts does not have extensive experience on the water and therefore does not understand what these river navigations entailed. Anyone with in depth boating/cruising/sailing would know that what these men did is outstanding, unique and very worthy of notation. There are other Wikipedia entries about achievements which would not measure up to any one of the three much less all three carried out in 3 consecutive years by a man in his seventies. The archived newspapers and magazines from various towns where he lived and operated companies have many articles, with photographs, of his different companies/projects.

I have personally have crossed oceans as a crew member on a yacht and spent many days/weeks on the Shannon and many other rivers, including some of the longest in the USA. Anyone with extensive boating experience, who spent even a few days on the Shannon, will testify that negotiating the length of the Shannon in a cabin boat without an engine is an extremely outstanding feat. It is imminently more difficult than making an ocean passage in a modern auxiliary cruiser. The Shannon with all of its obstacles and contrary prevailing wind would make an attempt to travel its length in a cruiser without the use of an engine a world class challenge. To my knowledge no comparable challenge can be found in the US or Europe – and I doubt anywhere on the planet. What they did is compareble to the first asscent of a very difficult mountain. Power Cruiser rental companies will not allow their customers to take these full powered vessels through the bridge at Killaloe or through the Limerick bridges because of the danger involved. Ask anyone who has taken a hire boat or personal cruiser through the narrow bridge passages on the Shannon if they would try it in a cruiser without an engine.

Till Attig and Donovan made the initial effort in 2007 to attempt such a feat would have universally held to be foolhardy and doomed to failure. To even think of removing the record of these efforts from Wikipedia does no credit to the editors, especially when this achievement is compared to many others which are included in Wikipedia. After surfing around the internet and Wikipedia I have just made several overseas telephone calls. You might do the same. For instance the housing system mentioned in the Wikipedia entry and pictured on the web site quoted in the entry was a permanent exhibit on the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds. He did have a boat company in Chester Illinois and developed a pollution device there which is mentioned in the entry.

Some of my fellow yachtsmen in the Cork area tell me that his first ocean voyage to Cork from the USA was made with only his wife and the baby which was born on the trip. This was made on the 3 mast schooner which he gave to the Youth Reach VEC program several years ago. To sail across the Atlantic a 3 mast ship, with only young child and its mother as crew is another remarkable feat. That seems to me to something worthy of an entry, even though others have done similar feats. I do intend to try to gather enough details about the Atlantic crossing in the three mast sailing ship and its eventual donation to the Youth Reach Program to include in the entry but that will take a day or two of telephone calls and checking the Examiner and Echo files.

Anyone can make a miss-judgement, especially if they are not familiar with the subject. Over my half century I have made enough of them to qualify for a Phd in miss-judgements, if such degrees were conferred! Because of what was involved in moving over one ton of boat and gear on the three navigations mentioned is beyond many of the achievements considered to be worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia the tag should be removed. Bill Hogan (talk) 15:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

After re-reading the Articles about Leonid Teliga, Krzysztof Baranowski, and Vito Dumas in Wikipedia I decided to attempt remove the tag which threatens to delete or merge. The Donald Attig single-handed efforts required more skill and endurance than either the Teliga or Baranowski circumnavigations. Dumas taking on the challenge of Cape Horn would equal – possibly surpass Attig’s single-handed challenge of the Shannon in a live aboard cruiser without an engine – relying on oar pole and sail in a box type boat and against prevailing winds. This article has really grabbed my attention and interest. It should be referenced in such a way as to encourage senior citizens that they can outstrip those who have “much less water under their bridges”. As far as Inland Waterways Association of Ireland knows there has not been an attempt to duplicate this adventure challenge since Attig and Donovan set the Benchmark record in 2007 other than Attig's successful 2008 effort. The 2007 record establishing effort was widely reported in Ireland on Television, radio, blogs and in the print press – both newspapers and magazines. It also received a great deal of coverage in the US print media and radio. That no one has organized a challenge of their initial record is ipso facto evidence of the difficulty and magnitude of the challenge.

I did discover that a person, who is compiling a reference book of world wide outstanding efforts by senior citizens, has contacted the Waterways Association looking for information about Shannon and Erne efforts. Sadly their details have been lost or misplaced. I would greatly appreciate if they and the original author of this article would contact me at billhogan2009@hotmail.com

I would like to have access to their material and may be able to add to what they have at hand. Bill Hogan (talk) 15:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I've just added material and a reference to a book about the space age use of plastic to the Section on Attíg's revolutionary building system. Also have cotacted one of Attig's children by telephone - was rather difficult to find the number as it is a mobile. If the person writing the compilation, which will include a section on Attig's life sees this please contact me. I very much want access to the reference material you have. Contatct me at billhogan2009@hotmail.com Thanks !!! Bill Hogan (talk) 10:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bill Hogan (talk • contribs) 06:02, 15 October 2009

Just finished a sentence I'd left incomplete when first entered. Bill Hogan (talk) 19:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC) Just added 2007 to an earlier sentence of my to clarify it.Bill Hogan (talk) 19:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The three people you mentioned Dumas teliga etc all attempted sailing achievements on a world wide scaele. Please read wikipedia is a not a newspaper. Eleutherius (talk) 14:33, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

If you can find a way to put the centeral event here into a topic then i can see that perhaps that would merit and article. but Mr attig himself does not. Eleutherius (talk) 14:40, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Eleutherius, there seems to be a lack of understanding here. These are world class challenges and world class records – not just newspaper stories. To take on the a major river (and especially the Shannon) the way Attig and Donovan did and then Attig single-handed requires more physical effort, skill, and endurance than sailing across oceans single-handed. To attempt to take over one ton of ENGINELESS boat and gear through the narrow passage in a bridge which has over 100 tons of water per second running through it just beggars belief. Until 2007 it was thought to be impossible to complete a passage down the Shannon in a live aboard boat without an engine. In an ocean crossing once land is cleared if the wind builds up too much one just heaves-to and rides out the storm. There is no room to do this on the large Shannon Lakes and they are too deep to for anchoring in most places. I personally think they were mad to attempt it and Attig even more so to attempt it single-handed. Not satisfied with that he then became the first person to take on the Erne in a live-board boat without an engine. Anyone reading the Northern Ireland Tourist board’s information on the Erne would realize that the Erne alone was a World Class Challenge. These three combined efforts of Attig’s in three contiguous years are most likely the outstanding Endurance feat by a Senior Citizen ever recorded on planet earth. It certainly adds up to a World Class achievement one that I doubt will ever be equalled. Attig’s documented ocean crossings in a three mast sailing ship without a crew have totalled more distance than a circumnavigation involves. While these passages were not contiguous you will note that the ocean voyagers I quoted did not sail non-stop around the world as some have done. In light of the difficulty of the river transits alone that this man conceived and carried out successfully he is well worth a stand alone article. All the other things he has accomplished only adds some whipped cream to the apple tart! If you sincerely think this article should be taken out please find one other seventy plus year old who has established equivalent benchmark records to justify your and let us know about them. I’m not the only one who thinks this way – check out Micktheclick2’s comment which is now on the top of the page. Bill Hogan (talk) 18:30, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Bill im sorry but i think you are missing the point. The acheivements may be world class but so are many things that are not wikipedia material. the article is also a vehicle for talking about donald and his life. If the main thing is the shannon feats then it should concentrate on them at the very least. However even if you make thius correction i dont see any category that exists on wikipedia that you could fit donalds feats onto. 70. 80 and 90 year old people do world firsts all the time but NOT all of them desreve to be on wikipedia. For example there is currently world records for each of those age groups in the 100m 200m etc running but you will not find those on wikipedia. Secondly even if you did those distance are recognisable distances that the whole world tries to achieve. Only people in ireland are interseted in the river shannon. Does this help?Eleutherius (talk) 21:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to jump in here and support Bill and Mick the Click2. It seems to me that when Elutherius trys to compare what Attig conceived and accomplished to running 100 m to better an existing record certainly demonstrates that he has no idea of what was involved. In the first place this was not an attempt to better someone else’s record. It was a successful attempt to set benchmark records for others to then try to better. No one had ever attempted to do this before because it seemed beyond the realm of possibility. Attig blazed a trail for others of any age to follow. Secondly many adventure challenge record involve an obstacle/obstacles located in one country. Mount Everest is not located in France but people in France are interested in assaults upon it. If a person of any age made it to the summit of a very difficult peak in South America which had never been previously scaled and in fact no one had attempted to scale it because mountaineers considered it to be beyond human capability to make it to the summit, people all over the world would take a great deal of interest in the feat. If the successful climber were in his retirement years the interest would be multiplied. People all over the world are interested in feats that require great endurance and cunning, especially when such a feat seems to be impossible till someone up and proves it isn’t. Before Attig orgaized the first challenge the universal opinion was that no one could overcome the hazards of The Shannon in a live aboard boat without an engine. Being the first to conquer Ireland’s River Shannon in this way is not an Irish event it is a world class event. Eluthrius has tried to compare one of the most difficult endurance adventure challenges I’ve ever heard of with trying to better a track and field event. This does not lend credibility to the motivation for his desire to have this article removed. Any man who can become the first ever (and that is a critical point) to establish a new benchmark in extreme activity events is very interesting and a great many people would want to know what makes such a man tic, and the more so if it has been a senior citizen breaking the trail were “youngsters” had previously feared to tread. I find the sum total of this man’s life amazing and very interesting and so do all those I’ve shared his story with.Omarmacmahon (talk) 14:07, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I was a citizen of Livingston County for a good portion of my life. My Mother was a vendor at the DuCoin State Fair so I remember the molded house. I have also kept track of Mr. Attig throughout his and my life. He is a remarkable man with an altruisic heart. His benchmark navigations of the Shannon are of interest to more than just the Irish no matter what the age of the sailor. Lorilin24.13.249.206 (talk) 14:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Guys. Climbing everest is indeed an event that takes part in one country but it is something that the whole world is interested in. Navigating the shannon is not. However Methinks there can a solution. My main problem with this page is how would you classify it? Firstly it needs to be said that the main thing Donald is known for (or at least the thing that the page circles around) is his feats on the shannon. Therefore it would a sailing record or a river shannon record. The thing is the records of any kind of navigation are not shown on the wiki's of rivers. I could see that Donald feats would be mentioned on the shannon wiki (and indeed he is) but only tentatively because of his age but then again wikipedia is not a newspaper. Should however this page get kept it needs also to be pointed out the page is way way too long. The central event is his feats on the shannon the rest of his life need not get so much detail. I will edit it to reflect this soon. Mr attig has indeed led an interesting and commendable life but as far a i know wikipedia is not a fan club. I suggest setting up a website for him if ye have such respect for him.Eleutherius (talk) 17:58, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Elutherius, your statements establish that you have no concept of how many people in the world are interested in boating and water sports, adventure challenge and endurance challenge carried out any place on our planet. When you compared a senior citizen breaking another senior citizen’s record in the 100 yard dash to a person of any age (in our specific case a senior) establishing a significant world class benchmark record (because of the obstacles and effort required in the task) you displayed your total lack of understanding about what was involved in these efforts. It is the challenge of climbing Everest that makes an attempt and especially the first successful one of interest. It is the extreme challenge of negotiating the Shannon in a live aboard yacht without an engine that makes it of interest to a wide and varied audience. As with Everest the location does not have a significant influence upon its interest factor.

These efforts were no less of a challenge than being the first person to swim the English Channel, which spans a gap between two nations, not all the nations on the globe. (there is a Wikipedia article about the man who did this) It is very evident that you personally have no interest in or place any importance upon water sports, adventure challenge, endurance challenge or the achievements of Senior Citizens. That is your right but do not deny others the right to have these interests and place importance upon them. Please try to give this article a fair shake by considering the following.

River Shannon in Ireland 1. divides the Nation's West from its East and South 2. longest river in Ireland 3. most popular hire boat river in the EU and Europe as a whole 4. first mapped by the Graeco-Egyptian geographer Ptolemy 5. has location of the world’s oldest known archeological find of a boat, which was discovered at the ancient crossing at Clonmacnoise bumping an Egyptian craft from the title (Ireland also has the remains of the oldest man made structures found on earth to date) 6. Ardnacrusha, on the Shannon, was the largest hydroelectric station in the world when built.(1929 to 1934) The installation and its plans were studied by many nations including the USA 7. home of monastic settlements that introduced Christianity to most of Europe 8. one of the most popular tourist destinations on earth drawing thousands of visitors from all over the globe each year

The Shannon and the Shannon Challenge 1. Since the completion of the Shannon Scheme in 1934 no one attempted to navigate from the length of the Shannon Navigation in an engineless live-aboard boat until Attig and Donovan’s benchmark establishing efforts in 2007. No one had attempted this feat as it was not considered realistically possible to overcome the hazards involved, just as some daunting mountains have not been assualted by climbers for the same reason. 2. The obstacles to the navigation of the course taken by Attig and Donovan in 2007 and Attig in 2008, using a live-aboard boat without engine power, made it and still make it one of the most daunting Adventure and Endurance challenge feats on the planet 3. Prior to the benchmark establishing efforts this was equivalent of a major unchallenged mountain peak left unchallenged

With these points in mind it is obvious that the feat and those accomplishing it are of enormous and wide ranging interest. Boating is one of the most popular sports/activities on the planet. This is demonstrated by the both number of participants and the number of monthly/quarterly/annual publications on the subject world wide. The amount of money spent world wide on boating is enormous. Boating shows anywhere it the world draw huge crowds.

The thousands of people who come from the USA, every corner of Europe, The Middle East and Far East each year to do hire boat vacations on the River Shannon and the thousands of non-boating tourists from all over the world who visit the Shannon attractions, such as Clonmacnoise, each year establishes the world wide interest in Ireland’s River Shannon.

A radio station on the East Coast of the USA carried a running commentary on the 2007 effort and had a web site dedicated to it.

To say that a very significant event on the Shannon, involving one of the World’s most popular sports would only be of interest in Ireland is like saying that a major Football contest in France would not be of interest outside of France’s border. (the world wide game using the round ball)

As pointed out previously the hazards and obstacles involved in establishing these benchmark records are different but as significant as crossing oceans. Once more speaking of the Teliga article please note that because of he was the first Polish Person, not the first person, to complete a circumnavigation he is the subject of an unchallenged article (as should be the case) and many features of his life, no more interesting than features of Attig’s life, are included and Attig was the first to take on an equally difficult challenge.

I also note that there is an article about Harriet Quimby the first woman to fly the English Channel. When she did “that which had not been done before”, her main claim to fame, it had already been established that a heavier than air device could make it across the channel. The rest of her life is certainly no more interesting than Attig’s and I would leave it to an unbiased panel to judge which of them had more significant additional achievements.

In point of fact even when Belriot crossed the channel many people thought the crossing by a heavier that air craft was possible. In Attig's case the universal opinion, of knowledgeable yachtsmen, was that the feat he wanted to do was was an impossible nightmare, not a realistic dream. The two men do have similarities. Belriot designed his aircraft with the channel crossing possibility in mind and I have discovered that Attig designed the boat used for the 2007, 2008, and 2009 benchmark record establishing efforts. When he did so one of his design criteria was that the family cruiser could be propelled by sweep oars if the conditions of tide and wind were right.

I note that there is also an article about Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel. This is in order because he did something that had not been previously accomplished and faced a challenge of extreme endurance and danger which I would guess most people thought could not be done. It would be an exercise in navel lint gazing to try to establish which of these two endurance/adventure challenges required the most preparation and physical effort/fitness.

While recognizing a comparable status; Attig did his feat, one that is beyond the endurance capabilities of most young athletes, at a very advanced age so he has an extra category of interest and achievement over Webb. I might add that if only people in Ireland would be interested in an adventure/endurance challenge involving the Shannon then it would follow that only people in England and France would be interested in a similar event involving the English Channel.

There are a lot of Senior Citizens in the world who spend a lot of time on computers. A great many of them will take an interest in and be inspired by this article over the years, even if they are not avid boating enthusiasts. They can be added to those fond of yachting, cruising, water sports, adventure challenges and endurance challenges as people who would consider this article worthy of inclusion by merit of its content. Bill Hogan (talk) 10:26, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Bill. you write pesuasively, i can see now that there will be some who see Donalds feats as noteworthy. However i think im right to say that you will have to redirect the article to one on the shannon navigation itself. A bio on someone who is primarily known for one event is unecessecary. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ONEEVENT#People_notable_only_for_one_event for further details. I would say that you could delete everything from further details about donalds life down and heavily edit his background info and then change the name of the page to a title reflecting the feats that he achieved. Eleutherius (talk) 11:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Elutherius, (I assume you are a man) I have not been a Wikipedia Editor previously and may not be one again. A fellow boater, who is an editor, told me about the Donald Attig site and also mentioned some of your comments. I have read every comment on the site as of 2 am today, Oct 19, 2009. After reading them I was so furious that I asked my friend how to become an editor so that I could point out how misguided your thinking is about the article's suitability.

Your lack of understanding of these events and arrogance in demeaning Ireland is beyond anything I’ve experienced in my almost four decades of life! How can you intimate that because an event happens in Ireland is of no interest outside of our Island, even if it is a World Class event!!! Ireland is a nation state within the EU, which has a larger population than the USA. I’d guess you are from that nation from the tone of your comments. We have more purchasing power than the USA and are a larger trading block than the USA. There are over 40 million Irish Americans and many more millions living in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, South America, Africa, the Middle East and all over the world. Most of these take a great deal of interest in what happens on our Island! You might be interested to know that in Japan there are more Irish language speakers than in any other nation, including ours. This should inform you that people other than Irish and those of Irish stock think highly of our Island and culture!

I have traveled the Shannon for years with my husband. Several years ago we made the mistake of taking our new powerful yacht through the Killaloe bridge and on to the center of Limerick. We almost lost the very powerful boat several times in the process and will never again go through those bridges, even in a fully powered boat. What this man did is extremely challenging and he did not do it once! He did it as co crew to set the original record - that is one. He did it single handed - that is two. AND he took an engineless boat the length of the Erne. THAT IS THREE DISTINCT AND NOTABLE EFFORTS We and many of our friends would not even consider taking our cruiser on Lower Lough Erne because there are terrible wind shears from the Cliffs of Mago, which can come even on a fairly calm day to overwhelm a fully powered boat and the waves on Lower Lough Erne can quickly build to open ocean size! This man on his third significant Benchmark establishing effort had to run this fearful gauntlet. This is number 3 in significant events in just the past 3 years. I only mention this as you seem to think he was only involved in one epic effort. I fear you have not read the material as well as I have. I quickly went to the other articles mentioned by Hogan and totally agree with his assessments. You would also if you had any grasp of what this man did. You might take time to go to his Web site that is mentioned in the Article. His life long achievements really blow my mind. In light of the articles mentioned for comparison by Hogan and others about bands and musicians I surfed through it would be a travesty of the highest order for this article to be deleted or merged. You have already committed one of those when you put down our Island as some kind of unimportant cabbage patch that no one is interested in and another when you compared this man’s this man’s THREE Notable benchmark efforts with running a hundred meter dash! Your disregard of these three notable events being carried out by a man in his seventies shows a callous disregard for the value of an active life in later years. Besides the little squiggles I’m signing myself as Darn Mad and highly insulted Mary!!! 194.0.79.104 (talk) 14:42, 19 October 2009 (UTC) I just slightly edited my own comments above Not so mad anymore Mary Boatwife Mary (talk) 15:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Eleutherius, I booted up after a hard days work and have seen the recent comments. I am mystified that you seem to have missed a lot both in the article and in my comments. Perhaps you have your attention divided as you read. You last objection to this article is that Attig is a one event man. In Ireland alone there are 3 distinct and separate events involved not one. All three established ORIGINAL Benchmark adventure challenge and endurance challenge records which are of great interest to people with a variety passions from all corners of the earth. I have discovered there are more Irish events not in the article and connected with his work in the peace process on our Island. These he will not allow to be published because of the threat they could still pose to many people living on our Island.

I am not the original author of the Attig Article but because I have both crossed oceans and made long distance river trips I know what is involved in all three of Attig’s river events – three not one. Being from the Cork area I know about the work this man did with at risk youth with no thought of any financial recompense. While the article is not mine I’ve taken the defence of it on as a crusade for fairness. I have contacted Mr. Attig, using the telephone number from his web site, in an attempt to get additional sources connected with his fabrication of the world’s first (and I think only) all moulded panellized housing system. His personal copies of magazine, book and journal articles on the subject were ruined when sinister forces sank his schooner at East Ferry, County Cork, Ireland on April fool’s day almost 2 decades ago. At the time he was the first person to be successfully working with members of both Northern communities by giving free sailing excursions to victims of the troubles - widows and orphans of both persuasions and the families of those on both sides imprisoned for acts of violence. Radicals who did not like the two communities being brought together sank his sailing ship in an attempt to warn him off the project. (they did not succeed) Due to the ship’s positive flotation it only sank to the deck line, but the documents in its extensive library were ruined by the time it was raised back to its lines.

Not to despair as Mr. Attig gave me a contact number, in America, for persons who operated the company which mass produced houses of his design on an assembly line. Before closinig down they had built a two and one half acre under one roof plant, the assembly line of which was computerized. I have been able to reach them by telephone and they will dig into the old files for lists of books, scientific journals and other publications that mention his housing system. Cris, the secretary, who was there in his days, assured me that his system was written up in every language that was in wide usage, including Swahili. She was confident that the records could be found. She also confirmed to me that on the day of the official unveiling and open house twenty two governments had official representatives attending the ceremonies and reception as it was considered to be the outstanding break though in manufactured housing systems of all times. A representative Plastics Chemist, Frank Pavolski, from Combined Industries (a conglomerate of the time which had several branches linked to the plastics industry) declared that Attig was the number one plastic engineer in the world, during his remarks at the ceremony. She said that somewhere in their files there is a local newspaper story quoting that and other speeches made at the unveiling ceremony. I hope to have at least a partial list of references about this project in very short order to add to the article as references about what was the primere advancement in factory housing in the 2oth century. That should put your mind to rest about the Article being up to your concept of Wiki standards. I am trying to contact Mr. Pavolski, but have not been successful to date. Perhaps he is no longer alive as the event was over three and a half decades ago.

If you were in Ireland I’m sure Attig would arrange for you to attempt to row the engineless live aboard boat he used for a distance against the prevailing wind. A few minutes of that would open your eyes about the scope of the Ireland challenges and why they involve more than sailing around the world in a modern yacht. I do doubt that he would let you try to take it through one of the Shannon Bridges as that requires more far more skill than I or any of my yachting colleagues have acquired in lifetimes of boating. His telephone number is on the web site which was set up for his Erne event. It includes a great deal about the two Shannon events. I found him to a very obliging man over the telphone and I have no doubt if you call him he would be happy to let you have a go at it so that your mind could be at peace about how outstanding his 3 separate feats on this island were. This could give you a valid excuse to come and see our wonderful Island and grasp while many millions all around the world are attracted to it, have an infinity in it and are deeply interested in anything connected with it.

This man may well be the outstanding inland yachtsman in the world today. No one I’ve ever read about or heard of could hold a candle to his achievements here on the USA waterways. I know of no one who would attempt to duplicate his feats on the Bayou Teche and other US waters, and his three separate Irish events are beyond the comprehension of any yachtsman I know. My library holds several hundred books about yachting, including some from the Victorian age and I get several boating/yachting magazines per month. I’ve never read of anything that comes close to his achievements. I do hope it was an over site on your part to lump all 3 Irish efforts into one event as they are clearly stand alone. I can't understand how you missed the importance of his breakthrough in manufactured housing systems. I do hope that you will take some time to consider all of this re read my comments and the article and go to www.donattig.wordpress.com I am confident that if you give all this careful consideration you will agree that the article is more than justified. Thank you for taking the time for a careful study of all this Bill Hogan (talk) 19:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Eleutherius, I’ve taken a lot of time from my busy schedule to respond to your comments. This is very frustrating as it is obvious that you have not carefully read either the article or the talk inserts the rest of us have been putting on the discussion page. If you are going to lash out again please be civil enough to give my words and thoughts a careful going over first. Please also read carefully what the others have written. They also have minds and a right to their opinions being considered in light of Wiki standards and many other Wiki articles.

Eleutherius seems to have an issue about the man this article is about. His problem is so severe that he lumps 3 separate and distinct events, carried out over 3 years into one event so he can call Attig "a one event person" and delete, change, merge or at least shorten the article. Each of the 3 events stands on its own and is world class because of the hazards involved and the skill, endurance, and plain old fashioned guts involved in their successful completions. All three were first time benchmark records. These are, as pointed out at least on a par with being the first to swim the English Channel, the first Pole to circumnavigate the globe and the fisrt person to fly across the English Channel. Eleutherius even tries to make the 3 events (which he confuses as one) unimportant and insignificant because they took place in Ireland. Benchmark efforts stand apart from their locations so this contention is foggy to say the least. Along with those significant accomplishments the person the article is about developed a high tech building system which many large companies had attempted to develop with a 100% failure rate after pouring vast resources into their attempts. A section about this noteable event is included in the article and occupies, by necessisty for clarification some space. Attig’s epic voyages in US waters, which are briefly mentioned, could be the basis for a valid article. Not even hinted at in the article are many outstanding achievements including the Research Foundation which Attig established and funded from his own resources. These were considerable and amassed from an initial war chest of $500.oo working capital. This foundation, among other things, produced papers accurately predicting disease incident growth trends connected to technology such as catalytic converters and colour televisions, when they were only first coming on the market and not yet in wide use. Some of the Foundation’s research into diet, lifestyle, technology and disease attracted the attention and input of Dr. Ernst Winter of U.N. fame who was the world’s leading soil ecologist and also well known as the husband of one of the Von Trapp girls made famous by the movie, THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Dr. Winter’s highest impact work involved on-site consultation to the Chinese Government which helped to revolutionize the agriculture segment of their economy and led to more efficient and higher food production. If all of Attig’s achievements, which are outstanding and of wide interest, were included in the article it would be several times its current length. I do hope that a series of articles will eventually find their way into Wikipedia and become linked to the current Attig article. I note that Hogan thinks Attig may well be the world’s most outstanding inland waters yachtsman. If he is not he certainly deserves to be ranked in the first two or three. As a life long avid Yachtsman I never came across or heard of his equal and can sympathise with Hogan when he makes that basic statement. There are several books in this man. He is being included in a compilation and has been approached about cooperating with a biography.

Eleutherius contends that the article is too long and has the wrong name. Other people i.e. Mary Baker Eddy have longer articles attached to their names with no more outstanding and widely interesting sections than the Donald Attig article.

The Donald Attig article includes the following: A short biography, A short section announcing benchmark records – which I think needs a small bit of expanding. A section outlining why doing the Shannon in an engineless boat with live aboard room constitutes a unique world class challenge.

A section with sub sections giving the 2007 benchmark establishing epic efforts of Attig and Donovan. The subsections deal with the two parts of this event – the official Shannon Navigation and the transit beyond that point to the sea estuary port of Tarbert in the Old Kingdom.

The next section deals with the 2008 successful effort; the second of three Benchmark record establishing stand alone events. Following that is a section on the third Benchmark record establishing event which transpired this year, 2009 on the Erne. All of these are important, and widely interesting to huge number of persons interested in the following – yachting, inland waterway navigation, adventure challenge, endurance challenge, achievements of senior citizens, and senior citizen fitness. (not to mention the millions of Americams alone and the additional millions around the world interested in anything Irish)

What is in these lines that should be omitted? For instance when H.E. Pricilla Jenna travelled to Belturbet, in our County Cavan it was the first time that a national Ambassador had travelled from Dublin to the area to be involved in an official function. Attig’s 3rd noteable event in Ireland (following many others in diverse places) was considered so important and unique that the official launch drew a crowd of dignitaries unlike anything in the long history of Belturbet. Should the bit about that be omitted??? There is a short section at its end which tells people how to find TV segments about the challenges. This was not originally in the article but when I worked a long day, at the request of the original author, inserting footnotes into their proper places in the text I also included links to the TV segments. Because they violated Wiki standards my entire day’s editing was wiped out. I can understand and now agree with the reasons why the links were removed but not why 14 hours of painstaking editing went with them. When I spent another day putting in the links I added the segment with directions to the links – one of which has been instrumental in preventing suicides in both the USA and Ireland. I can see no justifiable reason to remove this section which must involve 6 lines to guide persons to the sites, which are of great interest to many of the kind of people who read Wikipedia articles. How many suicides may be headed off by this section?? Next is a short section about the witnessing of these events, which seems reasonable as people want to know that something they read in Wikipedia is valid.

After these sections on the three separate world class events is a section with sub sections titled OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF ATTIG’S life. This section includes at least two sub sections which involve firsts – one of which is most definitely a world class event that took place in Attig’s life. That would be the longest section, which deals with his development of the most sophisticated high tech method of factory house assembly line construction of the entire twentieth century. I can’t see that any of that section can be removed without loosing very valuable pertinent and intersting content. There is also a small bit, with refferences about his patented smoke stack scrubber. The head of Northern Illinos power exicuted a document, after seeing the working model in action, stating that he was convinced that the divice held the key to clean power from coal. Northern Illionis Power serves more people than live in our Island nation so this statement can't be taken lightly. Should the short section about his company in Chester and the device's development there be taken out? There is a section about another first of Attig’s; the three mast ship that Ireland’s Counsel General, The Honourable Brian O’Kelly gave him permission to build from the ground up under the Irish Flag in the heartland of the USA. Never happened before and as far as I know has not been repeated. Almost all of the information in that section involves unique facets and I don’t see (especially in light of many Wiki articles) what should be deleted from it. There is a short section about the various plants he started and operated all of which are pertinent to a biographical article about a man who has earned such an article by being involved in several notable events. The final section mentions some his work as an author and includes references to the same. Following that are three pages of references and external links which refer directly to items in the article. Certainly none of those three pages should be removed. There are 4 photos in the article as I noticed many tags asking for photos to be inserted to improve Wiki articles and I wanted this article,that I was asked to help with, to be of the highest standard.

Granted this is a long article but it deals with many firsts and a very unique and unusual man. Given the material the original author has in possesion it was very difficult to decide what to leafe out to keep the length of the article down. Wikipedia is not a paper product which requires more paper for a longer article. Everything in this article will be interesting to a vast world wide audience. Those only wanting a few details about the outstanding and notable events can skim read the article – at least 95% of all people do this whenever they want to. Those that find the additional information informative, important and interesting can give the article a more careful read. I am convinced that most people who read Wikipedia and are interested in the subjects covered will read the entire article and have their lives enriched by it. This is what Wikipedia has always been about to me. If Eleutherius thinks differently I do hope he will deal with these points in depth and not just fire off and few lines threatening to remove portions that don’t suit his personal likes or all of the article. If this article and its length are not justified a lot of “biography” type articles should be removed from Wikipedia. This has to be one of the most unusual, and acomplished self made men of the 20th century and he is still "doing the impossible" in the 21st Century. My guess is that he will contiune to establish firsts until he dies in a final and hopefully successful attempt. Eleutherius I do hope you are printing and saving all the comments on this discussion page as I am. Omarmacmahon (talk) 23:32, 19 October 2009 (UTC) I just corected a few omissions of letters and one word Omarmacmahon (talk) 00:06, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Oy!! This morning i was adding a section to the River Erne article and noticed the bit about Attig. i vaguely remembered the unusual name from a Radio Kerry interview when he had set some kind of record so I clicked on the interlink and read this very interesting article. i’d almost not done so because of the ruddy tag. After reading the whole smear i wondered what the F___ is the bloody tag all about. After tea i logged back & went to the rap page. What a long affair that is. i did find out that the person who put the tag up adds 3 and two and gets a total of ONE, he must think he is Willy bleeding Shakespeare cause he uses old old English like “methinks”, writes off the Irish and anything Irish, and must have a peanut view of the world if he thinks the article is in anyway not notable or interesting to a wide lot of dudes. He also can’t understand that if you have to go to Nepal or Tibet to climb Everest you have to go to Ireland if you want to challenge the Shannon. The ruddy tag needs to come off the site and if Shakespeare doesn’t wake up smell the coffee and admit he’s screwed up i’ll do the job myself soon Kerry camera spy (talk) 13:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Happy holiday weekend to Omarmacmahon, Elueutherius, Boatwife Mary, Kerry Camera Spy and any one else interested in the content of this article. I have been in contact with the original author of the article by Email and telephone. The author is agreeable to the following. 1. Since the article is about a person who has been centrally involved in more than one noteworthy event it is evident that the article should remain as a bio. 2.The article will be pruned down with some material being possibly moved and connected by interlinks. Article to be more focused on the notable events of the 3 separate Benchmark establishing efforts carried out separately during 3 different years. 3. Some Newspaper articles to be loaded onto a site that can be given an external link within Wiki standards and rules, making them easily available to all Wiki readers. This will all take a while to accomplish but we will try to work it out to everyone’s satisfaction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bill Hogan (talk • contribs) 12:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC) (added the word more Bill Hogan (talk) 18:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC))

I made changes in the article (as promised in my last entry) which I discussed at length with the original author. The link where refference newpaper articles will be placed in PDF format will be up and running soon. My computer does not have the power to do this and I don't have the knowledge. Hope everyone is having a grand holiday! Bill Hogan (talk) 18:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Didn't think I'd ever do Wikipedia editing again - only signed up to let off steam at the Yank who wanted to tear this site down. Checked it out again to make sure he didn't and discovered that there was no mention of the hazards of the Erne Navigation. As a very experianced (and proud) Irish Boat Wife I knew that the upper Lough can be very tricky and the lower one very dangerous. To remedy this I added as short statement with a link to a N. I. tourist board site. I still can't grasp how a person could think that this man's feats (multiple) are not noteworthy or not understand that this is a justified biography in light of many other Wiki Biographys. Still a bit hot under the collar about the Irish put down on this page Mary Boatwife Mary (talk) 20:10, 24 October 2009 (UTC) Hope nobody minds - I just moved the bit about combined effort being additional record from the 2009 segment to the Benchmark section. I think it makes more sense there but am open to discussion.Boatwife Mary (talk) 21:17, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I actually am Irish as it happens. And Mr Attig is a "yank" ....Im going to take off the notability banner as i think ive been proven wrong on most fronts. It does need to be edited but thats grand. Please dont be scared off by my thoughts. You have made a fine article and well researched it was too. Happy holidays to you Mr Hogan.Eleutherius (talk) 18:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Took the time to correct the spelling errors I could find and change some words from British English to American English spelling. That is what we must do in my job as we deal internationally and US English is the international version. Hope nobody minds. Just trying to help. Boatwife Mary (talk) 15:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Oy! Came to the site again to see if the tag was still off. Bloody glad it is as this is a real booster for anyone who wants to grab life by the ar_e and go for it - especially the over the hill gang! Amazing the man did not give up when he had only made a few yards of the distance after two days. Perserverence pays off. Re-read the whole thing to give myself a boost. - just made redundant - Found a couple of small things to correct. Hang in there everyone. Kerry camera spy (talk) 20:57, 31 October 2009 (UTC) Glad to see the tag is still off. Kerry camera spy (talk) 20:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I removed 2 inserted questions. I answered the by whom question which needed answering My apologies for my original thoughts as I did not think out the question and considered it in the wrong light not the light of clarity of statement. On the second question the same answer would apply as it does in the Joshua Slocom and other articles of the type. It is obvious that with the wide national and USA publicity surrounding the planned attempts and the coverage by local radio stations and print media during the attempts that if anyone had made any of these voyages in an engineless boat with live-aboard accommodations the earlier successful transits would have surfaced in letters to the editor, to the boating magazines and calls to the radio stations. Both these navigational systems have existed less than 100 years. These were the first transits of the systems in engineless boats with live aboard accommodations since their creation in present form by the installation of weirs, dams, bridges the ESB eel nets and so forth. There have been many such transits in schulls, open rowboats, canoes and so forth. Transits in these smaller more easily controlled and propelled boats can be very difficult and are dangerous, especially on the larger lakes. They are not in the same category as trying to move a large heavy with accommodations that creates a great deal of wind resistance on the same transit. All three of these efforts were firsts and established challenges for others to follow in the same way that flying across the channel the first time, swimming the channel the first time, being the first woman to swim the channel, being the first woman to fly across the channel and so forth. These just listed efforts are in Wikipedia. (as are many more) In these efforts the pending attempts were publicised and the efforts observed in the same way that Attig’s three benchmark establishing were publicised and observed. Bill Hogan (talk) 21:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC) After reading and re-reading the Slocum article, which I printed, I went through this article to try to take out statements that would fall into the categories complained about. To that end I’ve deleted some content and changed some content in an attempt to conform it to the way the Slocum article is written. Being an avid and life long boater I do gravitate toward articles about the water and small boat sailors – this is how I first became involved in this article and made contact with its original author. The man intrigues me and I have even contacted him by telephone and his children and some former colleagues in the USA by telephone. This does make it very difficult for me not to start adding things such as the time he went after an enraged bear that had been wounded nine times with a point .22. At that point the bear needed to be destroyed as it would tend to attack any man it saw. Attig went after armed only with a Mexican fighting knife. What I found out about his adventures in the gold fields and timber country could fill a book. At any rate I will restrain myself and adhere to the Slocum article as a guideline as it has been in Wiki for years and is not tagged. I will re-read it again in a few days and then come back to the article. I do assume that if this article conforms to the long standing Slocum article that people will be satisfied. Bill Hogan (talk) 22:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)