Katrina Gulliver

The cruellest sea

Littered with wrecks, the Southern Ocean contains the point on the globe farthest from any land rescue

‘Below the Forties there is no law, and below the Fifties there is no God.’ Most sailors know some version of this saying, referring to the dangerous waters more than 40º south of the equator.

In Wild Sea, Joy McCann focuses on these waters with a history of the Southern Ocean. The ocean surrounds Antarctica, its northern bound still open to dispute. In the 1928 first edition of Limits of Oceans and Seas, the Southern Ocean was delineated by land-based limits: Antarctica to the south, and South America, Africa, Australia and Broughton Island, New Zealand to the north.

More recently, cartographers have tried to limit its scope. UK officials take the position that the Southern Ocean starts at 55º S, while their Australian counterparts still measure the limits of the ocean by its contact with land masses, meaning that it reaches up to the southern coasts of Australia and South America.

When even defining the ocean is difficult, it proves an elusive subject of study. The Southern Ocean is one we don’t often think about: it has no famous ports and its cultural influence is diffuse. Some don’t even realise it has an identity. (I mentioned it to one friend and he thought immediately of Tahiti. That would be the South Seas.)

But as an ocean it certainly has its characteristics. As the nautical saying suggests, much of this is rough water. For a vessel heading south, rogue icebergs start appearing at 60º S. The cold gales and ocean currents can make even the most experienced sailor wary. But the risk carries a payoff in speed.

This is thanks to the world’s longest ocean current: the Antarctic circum-polar current, which speeds along from west to east with no land masses in the way to slow or divert it.

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