Horse Latitudes

During the first few centuries of transatlantic voyages, seafaring Europeans overcame danger and uncertainty crossing mysterious stretches of ocean with goods, people and animals. Back then, before the advent of satellite technology and sophisticated navigational instruments, they were at the mercy of currents and winds. The belt of parallels between 30 and 35 degrees north and south of the equator was especially unpredictable and came to be known as the horse latitudes.

As defined by George Forster, a member of Captain Cook’s crew in 1777, “the latitudes where these calms chiefly reign, are named the horse-latitudes by mariners… because they are fatal to horses and other cattle which are transported to the last mentioned continent [America].”

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