The way the wind blows

• Posted on January 5, 2009 at 2:28 PM
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Today I was standing on the east coast of the Big Island of Hawai'i getting hammered by the wind. The sea was a mess of whitecaps spilling off the top of the deep swells and wind waves harrassed by the trade winds. These winds blow from major areas of high pressure in the deserts of the American southwest to the low pressure areas in the tropics. Today they were howling pushing soaking squalls of short but intense rain showers. The other day it rained 9 inches in 12 hours in Hilo, Hawai'i''s second city and the U.S.'s wettest.

Looking out on the windscoured waters I can't imagine being on them, let alone sailing on them, alone. But if you read the winter issue of explore you likely saw the article about Derek Hatfield, a Canadian sailor racing in the Vandee Globe, a solo, non-stop round the world race. (Find out more about him and his boat Spirit of Canada, here To him these trade's would not only be child's play but a good time, too. So it scares me to think of the waves and weather he experience last week, when he was forced to with draw from the race.

Sailing in the South Pacific far to the south of Australia he was hammered by a four day near hurricane force storm. When the weather finally started to settle down he went to take a quick nap. The next thing he knew he was standing on the ceiling of the ship's cabin. The boat had been turtled by a huge wave. It slowly righted itself, but the mast was damaged to the point where it was unstable and couldn't be used to turn in the wind.

"I feel devastated," the former Mountie said in a telephone interview with race officials. "It is a very emotional time."

Check out The Star article and links here