Cape Horn

[cs]

I don't think I've ever read a book that talked about rounding Cape Horn in nothing less than a full gale. I mean does it really stay that bad all the time?

Chad

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Ask JD he just did it ;)

[TomF]

The Pardeys rounded it in very calm weather - took photos to prove it was sometimes so. Then they hit a ripsnorter of a storm not long after, to make up for it.

I'm reading Derek Lundy's "The Way of a Ship" again, which tells the story of a barque hauling a load of coal on the UK to the Horn route, in the last of the 19th Century. Fearsome.

While the story is fictional, he's built it from many actual accounts ... in an attempt to describe what an average actual voyage would have been like. It's a great read

t.

[ 09-13-2005, 01:23 PM: Message edited by: TomF ]

[cs]

Been doing some internet reserch on Cape Horn. Here is some info I found.


However, due to the violent weather in the Cape Horn area, sailors navigated this route only with the greatest of apprehension. These hazards became well known to sailors in the 18th century as this route came to be sailed more often. The waves in this area often reached heights of over 65 feet. There are also an average of 200 days per year with gale storms and about 130 days per year with heavy clouds. Most of the rest of the year the winds are and the waves are high.Chad

[cs]

What makes the weather so violent there? Is it the junction of two oceans combined with the coldness of the Antarctic?

Chad

[TomF]

Nothing in the way to break the winds blowing clear 'round the world in the Southern Ocean. That's a lot of fetch, to build a sea.

[Popeye]

possibly no worse than most places on earth on average, i gather it is the speed with which storm fronts move in puts sailors in peril

[paladin]

Diddit twice (sneaked across Panama the first time) and it wuz flat as a pancake (almost) both times....

[ahp]

Someone did it and posted a photo on this forum a little while ago. On THAT day I could have gone around the Horn in my O'Day DaySailor. Can't guess what the next day was like.

[George.]

I understand much, if not most, of the Horn's evil rep is due to the fact that square-riggers had to round it against the prevailing wind and current. The "Bounty", for example, gave up after months of beating and went 'round the long way.

[John Turpin]

"200 days per year with gale storms"

Geez. That's almost four days a week.

[Alan D. Hyde]

Look at a globe, and the roaring forties explain themselves.

Cape Agulhas is no slouch, either...

Alan