56º 01.6´ S

067º 15.0´ W

The time is 12:35h

The South Atlantic extends in front of us.

Three miles to our port side, Cape Horn looms among the low clouds and hazy conditions. A look through binoculars reveals the lighthouse on the island close to the albatross monument that stands next to it—a sculpture with a plaque in honor of the many seamen who lost their lives during the long history of Cape Horn sailing. It reads: “I am the albatross that waits for you at the end of the Earth. I am the forgotten soul of the dead sailors who crossed Cape Horn from all the seas of the world. But they did not die in the furious waves. Today they fly in my wings to eternity in the last trough of the Antarctic wind.” (Poem by Sara Vial inscribed on the albatross sculpture at Cape Horn).

Our long route to Cape Horn along the South Pacific Ocean showed its multiple faces during this trip—beautiful, difficult, hard, rough, and it tested our patience in windless conditions too. And the last journey to reach this legendary cape couldn’t be any different. Last night, the winds eased down, and the swell calmed. Excited voyage crew kept asking what time we would pass by the Horn, but it kept changing. We are at the will of the winds and currents.

Smooth sailing overnight gave us a good view of the island during the morning. In front of Cape Horn, we sail in calm conditions that just pick up under the overcast sky and drizzle as we start leaving it behind. All squares are set, together with lower staysails, spanker, and our jibs, speeding up until again we slowly enter the shadow from the southern Patagonian lands. Then, for the rest of the day, Europa slows down once more. The fair wind becomes a breeze, then just light airs. Steering courses keep changing, as the light puffs of wind often come a bit from everywhere. Most of the sails come down, though not being furled, waiting for better conditions forecasted to come soon so they can be pulled up again. But it doesn’t happen until late at night when the northerly breeze turns to a better northwesterly, increases, and lets us set the canvas again.

A happy day, a day that many have been waiting for since we started pulling ropes and climbing the rig for the first time over a month ago. But we should ask ourselves why. Why does the Horn attract the imagination and the will of so many? A mythical cape, history, stories, full of legends and heroic tales. A meeting point of oceans, a squeeze on the West Wind Drift that runs clockwise along the South Pacific, a highway for westerlies and low-pressure systems.

Why does the Horn have such an infamous reputation? Anyone reading about the storm winds and waves near Cape Horn must wonder why they are so much more fearsome there than in the rest of the world. Off the Horn, there are gales of Force 8 or more on one day in four in the spring, and one day in eight in the summer. Winds have a lazy nature in that they refuse to climb over a mountain range if they can sweep past the end of it. South America has one of the greatest mountain ranges in the world, the Andes, which blocks the westerlies along a front of 1,200 miles from 35ºS down to Cape Horn. All this powerful wind is crowding through Drake’s Strait. The normal westerlies pouring through this gap are interfered with by the turbulent, vicious little cyclones rolling off the Andes.

As for the waves, the prevailing westerlies set up a current flowing eastwards around the world. This great ocean river is forced to pass between South America and the South Shetland Islands. Another factor greatly increases the turbulence: the bottom of the ocean shelves between the Horn and the Shetland Islands, inducing the huge seas to break.

Francis Chichester 1966. “Along the Clipper Way”

A sort of sailing that requires keeping a good eye and a good knowledge of weather, sea conditions, and currents, that calls for knowing the ship, her sails, and spiderweb of lines. A rewarding rounding if you know a bit of its history too, with the first sailors who spotted the end of the South American lands and the seas beyond, like Francisco de Hoces in 1526 and Sir Francis Drake in 1578. The search for new commercial routes brought Schouten and Lemaire to sail around Cape Horn for the first time in 1616. A period of discovery followed by the opening of trading routes using this passage in both directions to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. An era when mighty sailing ships dealt with these rigorous waters on every trip, each voyage of unknown duration and with no certainty of full success.

For us, this is quite an achievement already, but our sailing adventures are not yet reaching their end. Once the Horn is passed, we still face several hundred miles northward, just under sail, to reach the 50ºS latitude in the Atlantic. Only then can we say we have accomplished a Cape Horn rounding accepted by the Amicale des Capitaines au Long Cours Cap Horniers (AICH). Nevertheless, spirits are high and the mood is good, with all the thousands of miles already sailed using only the wind and sails and the fantastic sight of Cape Horn.