Winds in the Age of Sail
Encyclopedia
Winds in the Age of Sail: The captain of a steam ship naturally chooses the shortest route to his destination. Since a sailing ship is pushed by the winds and currents its captain must find a route where the wind will probably blow in the right direction. Tacking
Tacking (sailing)
Tacking or coming about is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing vessel turns its bow through the wind so that the direction from which the wind blows changes from one side to the other...

 was always possible but wasted time, a problem that grew larger on long voyages. The early European explorers were not only looking for new lands. They also had to discover the pattern of winds and currents that would carry them where they wanted to go. During the age of sail
Age of Sail
The Age of Sail was the period in which international trade and naval warfare were dominated by sailing ships, lasting from the 16th to the mid 19th century...

 winds and currents determined trade routes and therefore influenced European imperialism and modern political geography. For an outline to the main wind systems see Global wind patterns
Global wind patterns
Global wind patterns: Winds are named after the direction from which they blow. The globe is encircled by six major wind belts, three in each hemisphere. From pole to equator they are the polar easterlies, the westerlies and the trade winds...

.

Pilotage
Pilotage
Pilotage is the use of fixed visual references on the ground or sea by means of sight or radar to guide oneself to a destination, sometimes with the help of a map or nautical chart. People use pilotage for activities such as guiding vessels and aircraft, hiking and Scuba diving...

 or cabotage
Cabotage
Cabotage is the transport of goods or passengers between two points in the same country by a vessel or an aircraft registered in another country. Originally starting with shipping, cabotage now also covers aviation, railways and road transport...

, in one sense, is the art of sailing along the coast using known landmarks. Navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...

, in one sense, is the art of sailing long distances out of sight of land. Although the Polynesians
Polynesians
The Polynesian peoples is a grouping of various ethnic groups that speak Polynesian languages, a branch of the Oceanic languages within the Austronesian languages, and inhabit Polynesia. They number approximately 1,500,000 people...

 were able to sail the Pacific (with great difficulty) and people regularly sailed north and south across the Mediterranean, before the time of Columbus nearly all sailing was coastal pilotage.

Asians

East Asia: A Chinese or Japanese who sails east finds only thousands of miles of empty ocean and a few tiny islands. The Kuroshio Current
Kuroshio Current
The Kuroshio is a north-flowing ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean. It is similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic and is part of the North Pacific ocean gyre...

 tends to push his ship northeast into the westerlies
Westerlies
The Westerlies, anti-trades, or Prevailing Westerlies, are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. These prevailing winds blow from the west to the east, and steer extratropical...

 and towards North America. There are records of unlucky Japanese fishermen being blown to North America, but no records of any who sailed home. It is easy to sail south and link up with the Indian Ocean trade. North China had few ports and little coastwise trade. South China has a number of good ports but the country inland is hilly or mountainous which restricts trade.

Indian Ocean and the Monsoon Trade: There are no barriers to trade along the coast between the Red Sea and Japan. Local coastal routes soon were linked and extended to Indonesia. By about 850 trade was mostly in Arab or Muslim hands. This trade brought Hinduism and later Islam to Indonesia. A great advantage in the Indian Ocean is the Monsoon
Monsoon
Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...

 .which blows south in the winter and north in the summer. An Arab wishing to go to Africa or Indonesia would go south on the winter monsoon and return north with the summer monsoon. In Africa this trade extended about as far as Mozambique at the southern limit of monsoon winds. Further south was a lee shore
Lee shore
The terms lee shore and windweather or ward shore are nautical terms used to describe a stretch of shoreline. A lee shore is one that is to the lee side of a vessel - meaning the wind is blowing towards it. A weather shore has the wind blowing from inland over it out to sea...

 and no trade goods that could not be obtained further north. It is not clear how far south trade and geographic knowledge extended, but there is said to be a Chinese map of the thirteenth century showing Africa in roughly its true shape and there is a Venetian report from the mid-fifteenth century of a Chinese or Javanese junk seen off the southwest African coast.

Europeans Eastbound

Northwest Africa: A European who leaves the Strait of Gibraltar soon hits the Canary current
Canary Current
The Canary Current is a wind-driven surface current that is part of the North Atlantic Gyre. This eastern boundary current branches south from the North Atlantic Current and flows southwest about as far as Senegal where it turns west and later joins the Atlantic North Equatorial Current. The...

 which pushes him southwest down the African coast. He soon reaches the northeast trade winds which also push him southwest. If he leaves in late summer he will hit the trade winds sooner since wind systems move north and south with the seasons. The problem was to get back again. The solution was the volta do mar
Volta Do Mar
"Volta do mar", "volta do mar largo" or "volta do largo", is a navigational technique perfected by Portuguese navigators during the Age of Discovery in the late fifteenth century, using the dependable phenomenon of the great permanent wind wheel, the North Atlantic Gyre...

 in which a captain would sail northwest across the winds and currents until he found the westerlies
Westerlies
The Westerlies, anti-trades, or Prevailing Westerlies, are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. These prevailing winds blow from the west to the east, and steer extratropical...

 and was blown back to Europe.

The coast of Northwest Africa might be described as the nursery of European imperialism. Experience gained here was the basis for the sudden breakout into all the world's oceans in the 30-year period of 1492-1522. The Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...

 were known to the ancients. They were reached by Lancelotto Malocello
Lancelotto Malocello
Lancelotto Malocello was a Genoese navigator , who gave his name to the island of Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands....

 in 1312. Jean de Béthencourt
Jean de Béthencourt
Jean de Béthencourt was a French explorer who, in 1402, led an expedition to the Canary Islands, landing first on the north side of Lanzarote...

 conquered two of them in 1405 but the larger islands were not fully subdued until about 1495. The local Guanches
Guanches
Guanches is the name given to the aboriginal Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It is believed that they migrated to the archipelago sometime between 1000 BCE and 100 BCE or perhaps earlier...

 have the distinction of being the first non-European people to be wiped out by European expansion. The volta do mar led to the discovery of uninhabited Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

 in 1419 which soon developed a trade in wine and sugar. A longer volta do mar led to the uninhabited Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...

 which are over 700 miles from the nearest land. Further south the Cape Verde Islands developed a system of slave-worked sugar plantations which was later exported to Brazil. The Canaries were taken by Spain and the other islands fell to Portugal. Northwest Africa was the starting point longer voyages, the Spanish heading southwest from the Canaries and the Portuguese south from Cape Verde.
Down the coast of Africa: The Portuguese reached the westernmost point of Africa in 1444 and in 1458 rounded Cape Palmas
Cape Palmas
Cape Palmas is a headland on the extreme southeast end of the coast of Liberia, West Africa, at the extreme southwest corner of the northern half of the continent. The Cape itself consists of a small, rocky peninsula connected to the mainland by a sandy isthmus. Immediately to the west of the...

 where the coast tends eastward. Here the trade winds gave out and they faced the irregular winds near the doldrums and the east-flowing Guinea Current
Guinea Current
The Guinea Current is a slow warm water current that flows to the east along the Guinea coast of West Africa. It has some similarity to the Equatorial Counter Current in the Indian and Pacific Oceans....

. In 1471 they reached the Gold coast
Gold Coast (region)
The Gold Coast was the region of West Africa which is now the nation of Ghana. Early uses of the term refer literally to the coast and not the interior. It was not until the 19th century that the term came to refer to areas that are far from the coast...

 where they found the gold that had previously come by caravan across the Sahara. In 1474 Lopes Gonçalves
Lopes Gonçalves
Lopes Gonçalves or Lopo Gonçalves was a Portuguese explorer of the African coast. He was the first European sailor to cross the equator, the first to reach the point where the coast turns south and the first to reach Gabon...

 reached the point where the coast turns south and became the first European sailor to cross the equator. In 1475-79 Spain and Portugal fought along the coast. The Treaty of Alcáçovas
Treaty of Alcaçovas
The Treaty of Alcáçovas put an end to the War of the Castilian Succession in favor of Isabella I of Castile, and confirmed Castilian control of the Canary Islands and Portuguese control of the Madeira , Azores and Cape Verde islands , all in the Atlantic Ocean The Treaty of Alcáçovas (also known...

 gave the whole area to the Portuguese except for the Canaries. This was the first colonial war and the first colonial treaty. In 1482 Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most remarkable navigators of the Age of Discovery, who made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa to Namibia in the 1480s.-Early life and family:...

 continued south against the Benguela current
Benguela Current
The Benguela Current is the broad, northward flowing ocean current that forms the eastern portion of the South Atlantic Ocean gyre. The current extends from roughly Cape Point in the south, to the position of the Angola-Benguela Front in the north, at around 16°S. The current is driven by the...

 and the southeast trade winds, reaching the Congo River
Congo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...

 in 1482 and Cape Cross
Cape Cross
Cape Cross is a cape in the South Atlantic on the coast of Namibia, on the C34 highway some 60 kilometres north of Hentiesbaai and 120 km north of Swakopmund on the west coast of Namibia....

 in Namibia in 1485. In 1487 Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias , a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer who sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first European known to have done so.-Purposes of the Dias expedition:...

 reached Cape Voltas near the mouth of the Orange River
Orange River
The Orange River , Gariep River, Groote River or Senqu River is the longest river in South Africa. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean...

 and stood out to sea. Although the sources are not clear, he may have guessed that there were southern westerlies and was trying a volta do mar. After many days, at about 40 degrees south he discovered the westerlies and turned east. Finding no land after a number out days he turned north and reached Mossel Bay
Mossel Bay
Mossel Bay is a harbour town of about 130,000 people on the Southern Cape of South Africa. It is an important tourism and farming region of the Western Cape Province...

 about 400 km east of Cape Town. He continued east against the Agulhas current
Agulhas Current
The Agulhas Current is the Western Boundary Current of the southwest Indian Ocean. It flows down the east coast of Africa from 27°S to 40°S. It is narrow, swift and strong...

 to Algoa Bay
Algoa Bay
Algoa Bay is a wide inlet along the South African east coast, some 425 miles east of the Cape of Good Hope. It is bounded in the west by Cape Recife and in the east by Cape Padrone. The bay is up to 436 m deep...

 where the coast began to turn north. Guessing that he had found the route to India, he turned back, discovered and rounded the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...

 and reached Lisbon in 1488. In 1493 Columbus arrived at Lisbon with news of the new world and reported that he had sailed out of sight of land for five weeks.

In 1497 Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...

 chose a very obvious and very bold route. After rounding the bulge of Africa he sailed directly south across the trade winds and, helped by the Brazil Current
Brazil Current
The Brazil Current is a warm water current that flows south along the Brazilian south coast to the mouth of the Río de la Plata. This current is caused by diversion of a portion of the Atlantic South Equatorial Current from where that current meets the South American continent...

 reached the roaring forties
Roaring Forties
The Roaring Forties is the name given to strong westerly winds found in the Southern Hemisphere, generally between the latitudes of 40 and 49 degrees. Air displaced from the Equator towards the South Pole, which travels close to the surface between the latitudes of 30 and 60 degrees south, combines...

. This was by far the longest voyage yet made out of sight of land. Turning east too soon, he hit the coast and had to work his way around South Africa. Working up the coast against the Agulhas Current
Agulhas Current
The Agulhas Current is the Western Boundary Current of the southwest Indian Ocean. It flows down the east coast of Africa from 27°S to 40°S. It is narrow, swift and strong...

, at Mozambique he came in contact with the Arab monsoon trade. At Malindi
Malindi
Malindi is a town on Malindi Bay at the mouth of the Galana River, lying on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya. It is 120 kilometres northeast of Mombasa. The population of Malindi is 117,735 . It is the capital of the Malindi District.Tourism is the major industry in Malindi. The city is...

 he found a local pilot and used the summer monsoon to reach India in 23 days. Returning he foolishly sailed against the summer monsoon and took 132 days to reach Africa. Rounding the Cape of Good Hope, he again chose a wise and bold course. He took the southeast trade winds directly northwest across the South Atlantic to the Cape Verde Islands, the Azores, and home. Not only did Da Gama find a sea route to India, he discovered the most efficient sailing route there and back. In 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral
Pedro Álvares Cabral
Pedro Álvares Cabral was a Portuguese noble, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the discoverer of Brazil. Cabral conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. While details of Cabral's early life are sketchy, it...

 sailed somewhat west of Da Gama's route and bumped onto the coast of Brazil.

Portuguese and Dutch in the Indian Ocean: After a few more voyages the Portuguese learned two things. There was little market for European goods in the east and the large Portuguese ships could outfight nearly any local craft. They therefore determined to take by force what they could not get by honest trade. Under the leadership of Afonso de Albuquerque
Afonso de Albuquerque
Afonso de Albuquerque[p][n] was a Portuguese fidalgo, or nobleman, an admiral whose military and administrative activities as second governor of Portuguese India conquered and established the Portuguese colonial empire in the Indian Ocean...

  they captured Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...

 in 1510 for their main base, captured Malacca
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...

 in 1511 to control the Strait of Malacca
Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow, stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is named after the Malacca Sultanate that ruled over the archipelago between 1414 to 1511.-Extent:...

, tried to block the mouths of the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

 and the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

 and built forts in Mozambique to pick up fresh water and wait for the summer monsoon. In 1513 they reached the Spice Islands
Maluku Islands
The Maluku Islands are an archipelago that is part of Indonesia, and part of the larger Maritime Southeast Asia region. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone...

 and in 1519, the same year that Balboa first saw the Pacific, reached Canton
Canton
- Administrative divisions :* Canton , territorial/administrative subdivision in some countries, notably Switzerland* Township , known as canton in Canadian French- China :...

. They continued to use the monsoon route - north with the summer monsoon and south with the winter monsoon.

The Dutch republic began its remarkable rise about 1580 during its war of independence from Spain. With the union of the two crowns
Iberian Union
The Iberian union was a political unit that governed all of the Iberian Peninsula south of the Pyrenees from 1580–1640, through a dynastic union between the monarchies of Portugal and Spain after the War of the Portuguese Succession...

 in 1580 it was also at war with Portugal. In 1595 Jan Huyghen van Linschoten
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten was a Dutch Protestant merchant, traveller and historian. An alternate spelling of second name is Huijgen....

 published previously-secret Portuguese sailing directions for the Indian Ocean. The Dutch reached Java in 1596 and the Spice Islands
Maluku Islands
The Maluku Islands are an archipelago that is part of Indonesia, and part of the larger Maritime Southeast Asia region. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone...

 in 1599. In 1611 Hendrik Brouwer
Hendrik Brouwer
Hendrik Brouwer was a Dutch explorer, admiral, and colonial administrator both in Japan and the Dutch East Indies....

 found a better route to the East Indies. After reaching the roaring forties he continued east almost to Australia and then swung north. This avoided Portuguese warships and greatly reduced the travel time since there was no need to wait for the monsoon. This Brouwer Route
Brouwer Route
The Brouwer Route was a route for sailing from the Cape of Good Hope to Java. The Route took ships south from the Cape into the Roaring Forties, then east across the Indian Ocean, before turning northwest for Java...

 shifted the gateway to the Indies from the Strait of Malacca
Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow, stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is named after the Malacca Sultanate that ruled over the archipelago between 1414 to 1511.-Extent:...

 between Malaya and Sumatra to the Sunda Strait
Sunda Strait
The Sunda Strait is the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. It connects the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean...

 between Sumatra and Java and led to the foundation of Batavia
Batavia
Batavia is the Latin name for the land of the Batavians during Roman times. This was roughly the area around the city of Nijmegen, Netherlands, within the Roman Empire. The remainder of this land is nowadays known as Betuwe. During the Renaissance, Dutch historians tried to promote these Batavians...

 in 1619. Dutch trade led to the temporary occupation of Dutch Brazil
Dutch Brazil
Dutch Brazil, also known as New Holland, was the northern portion of Brazil, ruled by the Dutch during the Dutch colonization of the Americas between 1630 and 1654...

 and the foundation of Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 as a way station on the Brouwer Route in 1652.

Europeans Westward

North Atlantic: The European who sails west is sailing into the wind
Westerlies
The Westerlies, anti-trades, or Prevailing Westerlies, are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. These prevailing winds blow from the west to the east, and steer extratropical...

. Further north, he is sailing against the Gulf Stream
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean...

. It is not clear how winds and currents were used in this region.

Caribbean: Columbus underestimated the size of the earth and thought he could reach China by doing a grand volta do mar, going west on the trade winds and returning home on the westerlies
Westerlies
The Westerlies, anti-trades, or Prevailing Westerlies, are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. These prevailing winds blow from the west to the east, and steer extratropical...

. He had the right route but reached the Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean located in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles....

 rather than China. In 1513 Juan Ponce de León
Juan Ponce de León
Juan Ponce de León was a Spanish explorer. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown. He led the first European expedition to Florida, which he named...

 while exploring the east coast of Florida discovered the Gulf Stream
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean...

. A few years later his pilot, Anton de Alaminos, used the Gulf Stream to push him north to the westerlies and return to Spain. This established the standard Spanish route to the Americas: south to the Canary Islands, west on the trade winds to the Caribbean, then beat against the wind north of Cuba using the Florida Current
Florida Current
The Florida Current is a thermal ocean current that flows generally from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. The current was discovered by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León in 1513....

 to the Gulf Steam, use it to go north to the westerlies which led directly home. Since wind systems move north is summer and south in winter, there is a question of the best season, which is poorly documented. The Caribbean was the gateway to Spanish America since is the closest part of America to Europe measured in sailing days. Nearby were the riches of Mexico and, by crossing Panama, the riches of Peru.
Strait of Magellan and the Pacific: Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....

 discovered the strait which bears his name
Strait of Magellan
The Strait of Magellan comprises a navigable sea route immediately south of mainland South America and north of Tierra del Fuego...

 in 1519. Entering the Pacific, he used the Humboldt Current
Humboldt Current
The Humboldt Current , also known as the Peru Current, is a cold, low-salinity ocean current that flows north-westward along the west coast of South America from the southern tip of Chile to northern Peru. It is an eastern boundary current flowing in the direction of the equator, and can extend...

 to go north to the trade winds which then blew him westward to the Philipines. One of his surviving ships
Trinidad (ship)
The Trinidad was the flagship of Ferdinand Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation. Unlike Elcano's Victoria, which returned to Spain, the Trinidad tried and failed to return by way of Mexico. Trinidad was a nao of 100 tons with square sails on the fore and main masts and a lateen mizzen. Its...

 tried to return east using the northern westerlies but was unable to find them and was forced to return to the East Indies. In 1565 Andrés de Urdaneta
Andrés de Urdaneta
Friar Andrés de Urdaneta, O.S.A., was a circumnavigator, explorer and Augustinian friar. As a navigator he achieved in 1536 the "second" world circumnavigation after first one led by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522...

 found a wind system that would reliably blow a ship eastward back to the Americas. From then until 1815 the annual Manila Galleons crossed the Pacific from Mexico to the Philippines and back. The Strait of Magellan was rarely used since it was so far out of the way. The Spanish found it more practical to build ships on the Pacific coast. Silver from Peru was carried north on the Humboldt Current
Humboldt Current
The Humboldt Current , also known as the Peru Current, is a cold, low-salinity ocean current that flows north-westward along the west coast of South America from the southern tip of Chile to northern Peru. It is an eastern boundary current flowing in the direction of the equator, and can extend...

 to Panama and carried across the isthmus to join Spanish treasure fleet
Spanish treasure fleet
The Spanish treasure fleets was a convoy system adopted by the Spanish Empire from 1566 to 1790...

 in the Caribbean. Fernandez-Armesto thinks that southbound ships stood out to sea from Panama to avoid the Humboldt Current, but offers no good evidence.

Cape Horn: In 1616, almost 100 years after Magellan, Willem Schouten
Willem Schouten
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.- Biography :Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c...

 went further south and found Cape Horn
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...

. This was a better route because it does not require navigating a narrow channel. Only after about 1780 did significant numbers of ships use the Cape Horn route. Cape horn westbound is difficult because the wind blows from the west and the east-bound Antarctic Circumpolar Current
Antarctic Circumpolar Current
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is an ocean current that flows from west to east around Antarctica. An alternative name for the ACC is the West Wind Drift. The ACC is the dominant circulation feature of the Southern Ocean and, at approximately 125 Sverdrups, the largest ocean current...

 is forced through the gap between Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica. The nineteenth century Clipper Ship Route
Clipper route
In sailing, the clipper route was the traditional route sailed by clipper ships between Europe and the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. The route ran from west to east through the Southern Ocean, in order to make use of the strong westerly winds of the Roaring Forties...

went from Europe southward to the roaring forties, took them to Australia, and continued east around Cape Horn and returned to England.
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