The Cape Horners' club : tales of triumph & disaster at the world's most feared cape

Flanagan, Adrian, 1960-2017

Book

Total copies: 1

Summary

Cape Horn's fearsome reputation and the price it has extracted from those who venture there derives from a lethal contrivance of geography that unleashes the most powerful natural dynamic forces on the earth's surface. Reaching deep into the Southern Ocean, the Cape intrudes into the flow of the water and weather patterns at the bottom of the world and funnels them into a maritime superhighway a mere 500 miles wide, building massive seas and accelerating wind speeds to hurricane strength. Currents rip at rates that defeat powerful engines. These legendarily treacherous conditions were enough to secure Cape Horn's reputation as the ultimate in ocean violence; the supreme test of sailors and ships. It is the oceanic equivalent of the climbers' Everest, and the challenge to some became irresistible.