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. Francis Drake discovered the cape in 1578 on board Golden Hind, but it owes its name to the Dutchman Van Schouten who rounded it in 1616. He named it Horn after his hometown.
At 600 metres, Cape Horn towers over the ocean, but the dark, jagged rocks – the result of erosion from pounding waves and massive westerly gales – are hard for sailors to spot as they sail past.
Cape Horn’s discovery was a result of economic pressure. By 1520, Magellan had already discovered the Straits that are named after him, but Spanish/Portuguese dominance was coming head to head with a new ambitious maritime power: the Dutch.
With such stakes at play, the contenders needed a ship that could withstand the extreme conditions and which could also sail upwind. By the time such a ship was crafted, staggering numbers of men had been lost at sea: four attempts at rounding, four entire crews lost.
It happened at the Horn:
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The Montcalm, a French flagged ship from Nantes, battled wind and tide to round the Cape for two months before the conditions got the better of the captain and he altered course to run before the weather. He rounded the Cape of Good Hope and south Australia before at last reaching his final destination: San Francisco.
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Up until the 18th century, sailors navigated using a mariner’s astrolabe, which was an inclinometer used to determine the latitude of a ship at sea by measuring the sun's noon altitude (declination) or the meridian altitude of a star of known declination. With this information the captain of a ship could sail due west or due east depending on his mission with a margin of error of approximately 100 nautical miles.
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Magellan was the first to discover the Patagonians, the indigenous people of the Tierra del Fuego. In his logbook, he described them as “naked ugly giants with enormous women”. He added: “they became angry when put in irons”.
Copyright photo : © DR |