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Thread: Did I get my currents and wind directions right?

  1. #1
    Guild Expert Facebook Connected Caenwyr's Avatar
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    Default Did I get my currents and wind directions right?

    Hi all! I'm currently writing a section for my novel where one of my protagonists will be travelling by sailing ship (story is set in a world roughly equal to our 18th century). They are sailing from the city of Gaendyr (marked A on the very crude map below) to the port of Tash-Gawri (B) across the Silver Sea. And it looks like a lot of fun to use this voyage to tell something about the world without actually launching into a 20 page monologue that will bore everyone to death. I rather have the readers experience something than force them to read a dry piece of text.

    But: I want my voyage to be plausible, wind direction and current-wise. So I have two questions:
    1. are the currents and winds I worked out in this map correct? I'm mostly interested in the region inside the green box so please ignore any but the most blatant mistakes outside of that. Is it safe to assume that there will be a clockwise gyre in that almost closed-off but massive body of water?
    2. How would a merchant travel from A to B taking into account the prevalent wind and ocean currents?


    Here's the crude map as promised:
    Click image for larger version. 

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    If you're looking for some eye bleach to recover from that horrid mess, please take a peak at my topographic map for the same region, that looks a tad more pleasing to the eye.
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  2. #2
    Guild Expert Facebook Connected Caenwyr's Avatar
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    Hey, so in short I'd need to know if sailors travelling around this patch of sea would travel clockwise (following the prevalent currents - if I got them in the right spot) or counterclockwise. Does anyone have any pointers?
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  3. #3
    Administrator waldronate's Avatar
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    I would suggest that the easternmost loop (the Silver Sea) in the marked area is going backwards. Unless that chain of islands is poking through an extremely shallow area or the Silver Sea itself is a shallow basin, I would expect the two currents heading in opposite directions on each side of those islands is unlikely (but would cause nasty sailing if as shown). The presence of a large number of rivers in the northern area of that basin may mess with the surface salinity and cause things to flow funny, especially if the basin is shallow. One of the fun things about ocean currents is that the surface currents are only one part of the story: the deep currents are also important, and they depend on temperature, topography, and salinity. See the Gulf Stream as an example.

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