At Sea
Today marked the end of our Atlantic Passage as we sighted landfall in the late afternoon. The east coast of Brazil is very low and it appeared only as a fine line on the western horizon, 30 miles away, but we know that it is there and tomorrow we will arrive at Salvador, Bahia, our first port of call in the New World.
Sailing from Europe across the northeast trade winds, through the doldrums and into the southeast trades, makes sailing to Brazil fairly easy and our passage as been a very pleasant one, with balmy weather and following seas. It is easy to see how the Portuguese could have encountered this coast in the fifteenth century quite by accident as they sailed west to clear the west coast of Africa.
Sailing here from the east coast of the United States, however, presented a more difficult navigational problem to Yankee sailing captains. They would sail east from New York or New England ports in the westerlies and then south into the trades. The trick was to sail far enough east in the early part of the voyage to clear Cabo de São Roque on the northeast tip of Brazil. If a captain misjudged and failed to sail far enough east, he would end up on the north coast of Brazil and then have to sail against the trades and against the northeast equatorial current to clear the cape, expending a huge waste of time and energy. If he was too conservative and sailed very far east he also wasted time, and money, on the passage to Recife. Beginning in the 1840’s, Matthew Fontaine Maury, first Hydrographer of the United States Navy, compiled atlases of winds and currents all over the world and made them available to military and merchant masters alike in the form of his “Sailing Directions.” It was the first time in history that anyone had compiled such information and it took a great deal of the guess work out of sailing the world’s oceans.
So we are sailing in waters where history was made—in many times and many ways. We are in very good company indeed.
Today marked the end of our Atlantic Passage as we sighted landfall in the late afternoon. The east coast of Brazil is very low and it appeared only as a fine line on the western horizon, 30 miles away, but we know that it is there and tomorrow we will arrive at Salvador, Bahia, our first port of call in the New World.
Sailing from Europe across the northeast trade winds, through the doldrums and into the southeast trades, makes sailing to Brazil fairly easy and our passage as been a very pleasant one, with balmy weather and following seas. It is easy to see how the Portuguese could have encountered this coast in the fifteenth century quite by accident as they sailed west to clear the west coast of Africa.
Sailing here from the east coast of the United States, however, presented a more difficult navigational problem to Yankee sailing captains. They would sail east from New York or New England ports in the westerlies and then south into the trades. The trick was to sail far enough east in the early part of the voyage to clear Cabo de São Roque on the northeast tip of Brazil. If a captain misjudged and failed to sail far enough east, he would end up on the north coast of Brazil and then have to sail against the trades and against the northeast equatorial current to clear the cape, expending a huge waste of time and energy. If he was too conservative and sailed very far east he also wasted time, and money, on the passage to Recife. Beginning in the 1840’s, Matthew Fontaine Maury, first Hydrographer of the United States Navy, compiled atlases of winds and currents all over the world and made them available to military and merchant masters alike in the form of his “Sailing Directions.” It was the first time in history that anyone had compiled such information and it took a great deal of the guess work out of sailing the world’s oceans.
So we are sailing in waters where history was made—in many times and many ways. We are in very good company indeed.
