Douglas Mercer
October 25 2024
The horse latitudes are the latitudes about 30 degrees north and south of the Equator. They are characterized by sunny skies, calm winds, and very little precipitation. A plausible explanation for the genesis of the term Horse Latitudes is that it derives from the dead horse ritual of sailors (see beating a dead horse or broken anchor). In this practice, the sailors paraded a straw-stuffed effigy of a horse around the deck before tossing it overboard. Sailors were paid in advance before a voyage, and they frequently spent their pay all at once, resulting in a period of time without income. If they got advances from the ship's paymaster, they would incur debt. This period was called the dead horse time, and it usually lasted a month or two. The sailor’s ceremony was to celebrate having worked off the dead horse debt. As west-bound shipping from Europe usually reached the subtropics at about the time the dead horse was worked off, the latitude became associated with the ceremony. An alternate theory, of sufficient renown to serve as an example of folk etymology, is that the term horse latitudes originates from when the Spanish transported horses by ship to their colonies in the West Indies and Americas. Ships became becalmed in mid-ocean in this latitude, thus prolonging the voyage; the resulting water shortages made it impossible for the crew to keep the horses alive, and they would toss the dead or dying animals overboard. A third explanation is based on maritime terminology: a ship was said to be horsed when, although there was insufficient wind for sail, the vessel could make good progress by catching on to a strong current; thus the boat was seen to be riding the ocean stream in a fashion similar to a man on horseback. Yet another origin story for the phrase is that it first appeared in the English translation of a German book where Rossbreiten was incorrectly understood as Pferdbreiten. The Ross latitudes were named after the Englishman who described them first but could have been mistranslated, as Pferd and Ross are German synonyms for a horse. An incorrect translation could therefore have produced the term horse latitudes.
During the Age of Sail (circa 15th to 19th centuries), the strong prevailing winds of The Roaring Forties propelled ships across the Pacific, often at breakneck speed. The Roaring Forties are characterized by massive waves of some twenty to thirty feet and what the sailor gains in speed is counterbalanced by the treachery of the heaving and roiling waters. The Roaring Forties possess strong westerly winds that occur in the Southern Hemisphere, generally between the latitudes of 40 and 50 South. The strong eastward air currents are caused by the combination of air being displaced from the Equator towards the South Pole, the earth’s rotation, and the paucity of landmass to serve as windbreaks at those latitudes. The Roaring Forties were a major aid to ships sailing the Brouwer route from Europe to the East Indies or Australia during the Age of Sail, and in modern times are favored by yachtsmen on round-the-world voyages and competitions. The boundaries of the Roaring Forties are not consistent as the wind-stream shifts north or south depending on the season.
In 1982 French filmmaker Christian de Chalonge directed The Roaring Forties, a drama movie inspired by the death of Donald Crowhurst, a British sailor who perished in the 1969 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. The film was loosely based on the book The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin about the death of the British businessman and amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst, who disappeared while competing in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single-handed, round-the-world yacht race held in 1968 and 1969; Crowhurst never actually made it into the Roaring Forties but stayed in the mid-Atlantic while charting a false course in the Southern Seas before being becalmed in the wide Sargasso Sea where his log books indicated he thought he became a second generation cosmic being (see Deep Water, White Biocentrism, August 4 2024).
The Furious Fifties are comprised of inordinately strong winds found between latitude 50 and 60 South. These winds are part of a westerly oceanic current known as the West Wind drift. Sailors and seafarers use the terms Furious Fifties to describe the daunting and dangerous conditions one encounters in this zone; similar but by order of magnitude stronger winds and conditions prevail below latitude 60 known colloquially as the Shrieking Sixties.
The terms come from the Age of Sail (15th to 19th centuries), when these powerful but dangerous winds would propel ships across the southern Pacific. If you go farther south than a latitude of 50 degrees, the winds get even more powerful and frightening, and you reach what are called (as we saw) the Furious Fifties and Screaming (or Shrieking) Sixties. While in the Fifties and Sixties it invariably proves impossible due to catastrophic conditions modern round-the-world sailors do take advantage of the Roaring Forties to speed travel times, in particular those involved in record attempts or races. An old sailing expression goes: at 40 degrees South there is no law, but below 50 degrees there is no God. That is the further South you sail you take both your heart and your life in your hands, and the adventure, well, to survive at all it’s really got to be boy’s own stuff, a thing for the books; that is it’s like skating on thin ice and you will find yourself in a place where, as they say, you pay your money and you take your chances.
