"treasure island" navigation and sailing

[shunara]

Hi,
I'm happy to join the forum and hope the learned members would help me with a question I have.
In the "treasure island" book by Sevenson there is a phrase said by Long John, an old pirate, when talking about navigating the ship back to England from the treasure island somewhere in the Carribeans. He says that if he could he'd "have Cap’n Smollett work us back into the trades at least;"
However, as far as Wikipedia says, the trade winds, also called the easterlies are the winds blowing eastwards, opposite to the direction they need to get back to Europe. Is it some mistake made by the author? Or probably in the 18th century the name "trade winds" was applied differently?
Thank you.

[marcelo_malara]

Hi,
I'm happy to join the forum and hope the learned members would help me with a question I have.
In the "treasure island" book by Sevenson there is a phrase said by Long John, an old pirate, when talking about navigating the ship back to England from the treasure island somewhere in the Carribeans. He says that if he could he'd "have Cap’n Smollett work us back into the trades at least;"
However, as far as Wikipedia says, the trade winds, also called the easterlies are the winds blowing eastwards, opposite to the direction they need to get back to Europe. Is it some mistake made by the author? Or probably in the 18th century the name "trade winds" was applied differently?
Thank you.

Hi!

Your phrase is wrong, easterlies winds comes from the east and blows westwards. Said that, I don´t know what the author meant. May be they were in a horse latitudes and going back to the trades at least they would have wind to keep the ship moving.

Regards

[OpanaPointer]

The winds along the West Indies are generally WNW. Then the prevailing winds tend to go north along the North American coast. The wind then go eastward toward Europe. Many charts show a clockwise rotation in the North Atlantic, but not all.

So, catch the easterlies until you can bend for Florida and go around back to England. Not the shortest but maybe the fastest route.