rudyforest said...

is it just me or is this year turning out to be big zero on wind (metro Adelaide)?
Dec was decent.
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Where are you sailing Rudy? Its been a very good season on the northern beaches with lots of 20-25 & 25-30knot seabreezes.

Maybe I haven't seen those days? I keep seeing a forecast like we currently have...zilcho.

Yep, the SA Doldrums have certainly started early this year and its causing a few trantrums on this forum!!!

From Wiki:

"The doldrums is a colloquial expression derived from historical maritime usage for those parts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm. The low pressure is caused by the heat at the equator, which makes the air rise and travel north and south high in the atmosphere, until it subsides again in the horse latitudes. Some of that air returns to the doldrums through the trade winds. This process can lead to light or variable winds and more severe weather, in the form of squalls, thunderstorms and hurricanes. The doldrums are also noted for calm periods when the winds disappear altogether, trapping sail-powered boats for periods of days or weeks.

The term appears to have arisen in the 18th century (when cross-Equator sailing voyages became more common). It is derived from dold (an archaic term meaning "stupid") and -rum(s), a noun suffix found in such words as "tantrum".

The Pacific doldrums were famously described in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner in the following stanzas:

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
' Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.


Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, no breath no motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Jim Morrison wrote a poem called Horse Latitudes. Very morbid