Furious 50’s and the Southern Ocean
It was already a couple of days ago when we sailed into the latitudes of the 50’s. Despite their reputation, they welcomed us with a benign face. But well, easy good conditions never last for too long here. Today these 50’s start to show off and give us a hint of what sailing in those latitudes is about.
Wind rises in the morning to gusts of up to 45kn, hours pass and for a moment it peaks at 57kn. Under these conditions, the seas grow too. Waves are made under this wind, swell travels and meets us from the stern. They tower over the aft of the ship, then she rides over them, often some break over the bulwarks and run over the main deck. Today, she pitches, surfing the waves, then she rolls and rolls.
Before it hits the hardest, we are ready with Middle Staysails down, Royals and the Main course furled. Top Gallants follow.
Squalls pass, rain falls, eventually some moments of hail too.
That all feels more like sailing the Furious 50's.
And it is not just this, now we have entered the so-called Southern Ocean, the southernmost body of water on Earth.
But the limits and definition of this Ocean are not as clear as those of the other three Oceans in the World.
Its delineation has been the subject of discussion since the publication of the first edition of the Limits of Oceans and Seaschart in 1928. Its limits have moved on several occasions.
So, regarding the old definition, it is delineated by land-based parameters, Cape Horn in Chile, Cape Agulhas in Africa, Cape Leeuwin in Australia, and roughly to Cape Grim in Tasmania. But later on, eventually the Southern Ocean denomination was omitted and just considered as the southern part of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Again in 2002, the International Hydrographic Organisation addressed the issue, reconsidering its limits at the 60th parallel south (where oceanic waters run around the world with no land interruptions) and roughly coinciding with the Polar Front, where Subantarctic waters meet the colder Antarctic waters. A convention agreed upon too in 2021 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the National Geographic Society. Though from a biological and oceanographical standpoint, the Southern Ocean is considered as the body of water limited by the Subtropical Front (around 40ºS) where cold and nutrient-rich subantarctic waters meet warmer subtropical waters.
So, up to you to consider where the Europa sails now, South Pacific? Or had we better talk about the Southern Ocean?
One way or the other, it doesn’t change that from now on we find ourselves in the 50’s latitudes, where there is an intense westerly circulation both of atmosphere and ocean along the southern area of the southern hemisphere. Currents flow and winds blow and swells grow uninterrupted by any landmass around Antarctica. Just a constriction on this flow lies ahead, between the Antarctic Peninsula and Cape Horn. From which we are now 1709 nautical miles away, after having sailed 174 miles today.