Around the World with Bob and Christine Harper: Breakaway, Heading for New Caledonia - Time to Hoist Sails Again

Bob, Harper, Christine, The News Letter (Belfast, Northern Ireland)

Auckland, 30 degrees south

BELFAST Lough lies about 54 degrees north of the equator. The Arctic starts at 65.5 degrees north. Each degree is sixty nautical miles and a nautical mile is roughly 1.1 land miles. So we only live slightly less than 700 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Is it any wonder our weather at times is poor?

Auckland is at 30 degrees south of the equator which puts it somewhere between 1600 and 1700 miles north of Antartica.

There is a subtle difference. We have protection from America; the land masses in the Northern hemisphere are greater. Down here, there is no protection. The winds of the south blow form the west with nothing to stop them.

They are called the roaring forties, the name for gales in the Southern Hemisphere that the square-riggers of old searched out to achieve speed, but at the cost of hellish conditions for sailors and often the loss of ships and crew.

Autumn has now arrived in New Zealand and it's time for us to move on again.

The weather is still fair though today it …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: Around the World with Bob and Christine Harper: Breakaway, Heading for New Caledonia - Time to Hoist Sails Again. Contributors: Bob - Author, Harper, Christine - Author. Newspaper title: The News Letter (Belfast, Northern Ireland). Publication date: May 15, 1999. Page number: 28. © 2006 Johnston Publishing Ltd. COPYRIGHT 1999 Gale Group.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.