TUESDAY, the 13th of December, 2011

Around the By-Pass, the old by-pass, clockwise.  6Left Arena parking lot at 4 minutes to 6a.m.  A pretty good wind.  "Around the Horn" - you must have heard that expression.  That's what the by-pass wind reminded me of today.

Can you imagine going around Cape Horn in a clipper in the 1600's?

Here are some interesting facts from the net on the sailing conditions "around the horne".  

 
Several factors combine to make the passage around Cape Horn one of the most hazardous shipping routes in the world: the fierce sailing conditions prevalent in the Southern Ocean generally; the geography of the passage south of the Horn; and the extreme southern latitude of the Horn, at 56° south. (For comparison, Cape Agulhas at the southern tip of Africa is at 35° south; Stewart Island/Rakiura at the south end of New Zealand is 47° south.)

The prevailing winds in latitudes below 40° south can blow from west to east around the world almost uninterrupted by land, giving rise to the "roaring forties" and the even more wild "furious fifties" and "screaming sixties". These winds are hazardous enough in themselves that ships traveling east would tend to stay in the northern part of the forties (i.e. not far below 40° south latitude); however, rounding Cape Horn requires ships to press south to 56° south latitude, well into the zone of fiercest winds.^[16] These winds are further exacerbated at the Horn by the funneling effect of the Andes and the Antarctic peninsula, which channel the winds into the relatively narrow Drake Passage.

The strong winds of the Southern Ocean give rise to correspondingly large waves; these waves can attain enormous size as they roll around the Southern Ocean, free of any interruption from land. At the Horn, however, these waves encounter an area of shallow water to the south of the Horn, which has the effect of making the waves shorter and steeper, greatly increasing the hazard to ships. If the strong eastward current through the Drake Passage encounters an opposing east wind, this can have the effect of further building up the waves.^[17] In addition to these "normal" waves, the area west of the Horn is particularly notorious for rogue waves, which can attain heights of up to 30 metres (100 ft).^[18]



When we are running against a strong wind - we can think about those poor buggers in the 1600's  sailing around the horn.  It must have been frightening to say the least.  We were in Australia on the Southern tip  (South of Perth) where the Indian Ocean meets  the Great Southern Ocean.  The water churned and looked very inhospitable.  There was a lighthouse there that we visited and carved in the wall upstairs was some sailer's message that he left:  It said something like:  "If you go to sea here, you best  know how to prey".

Keep give'n'er,
gk