There is a saying among sailors that there are no rules at 40° South, no laws at 50° South and no gods at 60° South. The location where the debris of MH370 was found by satellites was at 44° South in the Indian Ocean, well entrenched in the roaring forties. The southern hemisphere of the planet is the realm of the oceans. South of the equator, there is more sea than land and the distance between the shores of any two continents at 40° South is at least 7,000km.
For this reason, frontal weather systems or extra tropical cyclones, originating south of the Tropic of Capricorn, blow unhindered on their eastward passage. When a front passes, the barometer drops like a stone and winds often build up to hurricane force, bringing cold torrential rains in tow. The long fetch also means that they often whip up waves of 10m and more. Waves often roll, and there is surf all around because accompanying winds are so strong that tops of waves are chopped off and the sea assumes a white colour as foam spreads. The sky is a similar story in grey. These systems hit you with alarming regularity, sometimes at the rate of one per week. A very bad day in the monsoon is better than an average day in the Southern Ocean.
I remember the first front that hit me. It had a very defined advancing end extending from the surface of the sea right up to the edge of the sky and it looked like a thousand elephants marching in quick pace kicking up grey dust storms. In December 2012, I was sailing off the area where the suspected debris was recently found and weather conditions had been similar. Winds were blowing gale force, breaking even strong stainless steel fittings in the boat. Temperatures dropped close to 4°C, waves were breaking all over and there were white streaks of sea all around. It was gloomy, overcast, certainly frightening, and very apocalyptic and it lasted a good four days.
The peculiarity of the southern hemisphere is the rarity of landmass as opposed to the northern hemisphere, which automatically means fewer ports and fewer ships plying between these ports. Since international search and rescue at sea heavily depends on directing the nearest ship to the scene of incident, difficulties are compounded. Ships have greater staying power but are slower to reach. Aircraft, therefore, are a quicker and faster option. They don’t need much time to mobilise and they can reach a search area quickly. But they don’t have as much staying power and they are much more susceptible to weather. Aerial search and rescue also suffers from the fact that there are no floating airfields in the middle of the ocean. Transits are lengthy affairs, often contributing to crew fatigue.
Distance and bad weather compound problems. The fact that Perth is around 2,500km away did not help. The day the suspected debris was found in the Indian Ocean, the weather around was described as gale force winds with large waves, heavy rains and low clouds. A search and rescue aircraft taking off from Perth would be akin to a takeoff from Thiruvananthapuram followed by a transit flight all the way up to Seychelles in the thick of monsoons to visually look for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The aircraft would then have to fly very low, well below cloud base, in severe turbulence and bad visibility, and every member of the crew would be straining their eyes to collect physical evidence of the wreckage.
Commander Abhilash Tomy is the first Indian to circumnavigate the world solo.