The MoM World - Sail Round The World

I believe a lot of you guys might be wondering why my blog was named The MoM World ? MoM actually stands for "Mecca of Marine" World or Centre of Marine World. Hence the full title should read "The Mecca of Marine World". At one point of my life, I want to sail round the World. It's obvious that it would need a lot of Capital : be it monetary, knowledge and material in order to do such an adventure. A lot of planning. A whole lot of preparation. A lot of research. Understanding the World weather routing, seasonal wind, currents, typhoon and hurricanes seasons and other natural phenomena. The typical motto : "Be prepared for the Worsts and Hope for the Best".

So, in preparing for my round the world trip.....I will take you with me doing the brainstorming, researching into World weather patterns, ocean currents, seasons to avoid in certain places, selecting and buying a suitable sail boat, boat rationing, learning to sail, navigation, Ocean and Coastal Rule of the Road, Port and Custom Clearance, Health Quarantine and a whole lot of other stuff that I need to prepare prior undertaking the task of circumnavigating the earth. It's a daunting task but with the philosophy "WE CAN" with the blessing of God Almighty's nothing is impossible.

What I need from you guys is to provide relevant support in terms of ideas, past experiences, especially local knowledge about practises or peculiar weather patterns near your area will be of great help.

Here we Go..........

GLOBAL WIND PATTERNS
https://www.google.com/search?q=global+wind+patternsobal Wind Pattern

By simply clicking on the URL above, the diagram illustrate the global High pressure and Low pressure areas. In principle, Wind blows from High Pressure to Low Pressure. Whenever there is pressure differential, there is wind. If a certain area does not have wind, that means there is no pressure differences. This is what we called "equilibrium" or calm. Note: Many of you may be confused with the wind direction. For Wind : when a direction of wind is mention - it means that it's the direction where the Wind is coming from. In the event of Current (Sea current or River Current) it means that it is the direction where the Current is setting to. These two conventions MUST never be confused and forms part of basic meteorology. 

However, there are local coastal and hill winds that are more complex than the basic High and Low pressure differences. Sometimes there are also the merging of two or three wind forces that causes turbulence. There are also the seasonal Hurricanes, Typhoons, Cyclones or Tornadoes. The principles remain the same. But they are in Grand scale.

Next we move to the Trade Wind scenario, where the following URL will provide comprehensive information that we are looking for : http://bio1151b.nicerweb.net/Locked/media/ch50/wind.html
From this diagram, the term "Coriolis" was used for the first time. This is actually the effect of the earth rotation from West to East causing a "shift" in the wind direction. This effect is called the Coriolis Effect.



You will notice that in the Northern Hemispere, the wind patterns move in a clockwise direction, where as in the Southern Hemishere, it is anti-clockwise. It is interesting to note that, when Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain, he intends to go to India but ended up in the West Indies -his ship's was carried away by the strong Easterly Trade Winds.

The Coastal wind patterns are caused by the unequal heating of the land mass and the sea. The land heats up faster than the sea water. As such, the hot air from the land rises which causes a pressure difference, thus cooler air from the sea blows to the coast land to replace the lower air pressure area left by the rising hot air. Similarly, in the evening when the coast land cools off earlier than the sea, the land breeze fills up the lower air pressure area left by the warm air still rising in the sea at night. This kind of sea breeze and land breeze can be felt if you are sailing close to the coastal waters. There is also the Katabatic wind which affect areas near mountains and hillslope. We are not going to cover this.

The other form of winds are the disturbances caused by Hurricane, typhoon, and tornadoes or we  generally called as storms ! Their scientific name is Tropical Cyclone. They are called differently in various part of the world. In Asia/Far East - Typhoon, In America/West Indies - Hurricane, Australia/Indian Ocean - Cyclone. Their typical paths are as shown in the drawing below.

Shows origin and typical path of Storms

These storms are formed in the warm areas near the Equator, which are like an engines that requires warm air and moisture as their fuel. It normally covers a large area. These warm air and moist air rises quickly upward, it created a low air pressure below it, and are quickly replaced by cool air. As the process continue, the cool air and moist air get heated up to due to the vastness of the area, as more air rises it forms large cumulonimbus clouds. As the process continues, it created a swirling effect "counter-clockwise direction" in the Northern Hemisphere and "clockwise" in the Southern Hemishere. The whole system of swirling winds, cloud and moisture grows as they are being fed by the ocean's heat and moisture evaporating from the surface. 

How the swirling effect was created

It gathers momentum, and moved in a Westerly to Northwesterly direction in the Northern Hemisphere seeking more warm water and moist air to survive. The whole system moves at approximately 10 to 15 knots. It normally weakens once it reaches landfall. Without her fuel i.e. warm air and moist air, it will not survive !There have been cases whereby, it was still causing havoc 100 to 200 miles inland. Those happens because of the vastness of the system. It can covers an area of 400 to 500 mile. Like Hurricane Irma, it could also cover the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina at once. That was when she was matured. In her earlier stage, prior passing West Indies, she was more like the state of Texas.

Hurricane "Irma"prior hitting Virgin Islands

Now let's take a look at the prevailing Ocean Currents. Looking at the way nature was formulated, it seems almost obvious that sailing East to West is the recommended way of traversing the Earth. With the Earth rotating from West to East, and taking into account time zones, it will be to your advantage going westwards. If you compare the Ocean surface currents, and the trade winds, they seems to match. What I mean is you need to catch both inorder to get the favourable speed through the water. Although the yacht has a small water plane area, but it's enough to be affected by ocean current. See the diagrams  below of the Surface Current of the World And match it against the prevailing Trade Winds.....

Surface Current of the World

Prevailing Trade Winds

And match it against the prevailing Trade Winds.....

However, you need to be mindful when to enter certain areas and when to get out of it. Otherwise, your boat will be dragged along to unwanted territories. Such as head-on with the Antartic Circumpolar Current near South Africa and also not to far up North or you'll be encountering with the pirates of Somalia. I am visualizing coming out of Malacca Strait, and heading South to about Latitude 15 Degrees South before heading West joining the South Equatorial Current and catching the South Easterly Trade Wind. I would be targeting the Northern tip of Madagascar Island and into the Mozambique Channel keeping close to the shore to join the Agulhas Current and after turning the Cape of Good Hope joins the Benguela Current and so on. 

To be Continued.......