NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Eac
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2005 Jun 11, 17:52 EDT
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2005 Jun 11, 17:52 EDT
Peter you wrote: "Going south its the opposite story. The current tends to be strongest out along the edge of the continental shelf, at about 200 metres of depth, the old 100 fathom line. Just to round off my personal evidence for the EAC's unpredictability, once we were sailing south for about 600 nm along the coast, and sat out there, about 10 nm from shore, in the hope of the current wafting us home, as there was little wind. Out of luck, the current seemed to have gone to the same place as the wind, almost entirely missing." The EAC, the Kuroshio, the Gulf Stream, the Brazil, and the Agulhas currents are known to oceanographers as the "western boundary currents". They all have similar properties: fast, narrow, riding the the edge of the continental shelf, and prone to spawn large, powerful eddies after they break away from the coast. There is a real revolution going on in the prediction and analysis of ocean currents thanks to real-time satellite altimetry and supercomputer analysis. If you haven't seen it, go here: http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/global_nlom32/skill.html Start with the "Global" coverage and then click on "Speed Nowcast" or "Speed Forecast". Download the "Last 12 Months" mpeg if you want to see it come alive. It's amazing --makes the Earth look like Jupiter... You can also get detailed analysis of the EAC under the Pacific coverage. -FER 42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W. www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
