I have something to announce! On next Monday (15.04.2019) I am going to St. Maarten, where I will be joining Sailing Poland and crossing with them Atlantic Ocean, finishing in Vigo, Spain. The boat I will be sailing on is ex-team Mapfre Volvo Ocean 65 (picture below), from the 2015-2016 Volvo Ocean Race edition! I must say, I am more than excited about that. I won’t have access to the internet during this cruise. Furthermore, I don’t exactly know for how long will it last (it is said, that approximately two weeks). According to World Sailing rules, I am officially taken as a PRO on that boat (but it’s considered mostly during regatta).

I thought it might be a nice idea to write about Coriolis effect and a bit more about meteorology in general in this and next post, as both are highly significant during sailing, especially on open waters. To begin with, I think most of the people heard, that water in the toilet spins the other way round on different hemispheres, and this is due to the Coriolis effect. But this is a myth and Coriolis effect, unfortunately, cannot be observed on such a small scale and in such short period of time. But how does Coriolis effect work? We need to remember it is just an effect, it’s not a law, it doesn’t bring anything new, it just explains why something happens, referring to actual laws (like in this case, Newton’s laws). We may come across with Coriolis force, but just like centrifugal force it is a pseudo/apparent force, which means it is some kind of simplification of another force or forces, so it can be substituted and explained by them. Basically, everything here is about movement and different speeds in different points. For instance, on equator air has greater speed than on higher/lower latitudes. That air has greater momentum. Air moves, when air with higher speed (and momentum) moves to the area where air has lower speed, it “outruns” it, and from earth’s point of reference, its path of faster air is curved. The same with air with low speed, as it moves to “fast air” area, it seems to be curving. To me, personally, it is very hard to picture it, so I will put a link to short video, where it is perfectly explained and shown, why water in toilets doesn’t care about Coriolis effect, and how it exactly works.