Wikipedia

Whirlpool

This article is about the water movement. For the American home appliances manufacturer, seeWhirlpool Corporation.For other uses, seeWhirlpool (disambiguation).

Awhirlpoolis a body of rotatingwaterproduced by opposing currents or a current running into an obstacle.[1][clarification needed]Small whirlpools form when a bath or a sink is draining. More powerful ones formed in seas or oceans may be calledmaelstroms(/ˈmeɪlstrɒm,-rəm/MAYL-strom, -⁠strəm).Vortexis the proper term for a whirlpool that has adowndraft.[citation needed]

TheGulf of Corryvreckanwhirlpool in Scotland is the third-largest whirlpool in the world.

In narrow ocean straits with fast flowing water, whirlpools are often caused bytides.Many stories tell of ships being sucked into a maelstrom, although only smaller craft are actually in danger.[2]Smaller whirlpools appear atriver rapids[3]and can be observed downstream of artificial structures such asweirsand dams. Largecataracts,such asNiagara Falls,produce strong whirlpools.

Notable whirlpools

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Saltstraumen

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Saltstraumen
Main article:Saltstraumen

Saltstraumen is a narrow strait located close to theArctic Circle,[4]33 km (20 mi) south-east of the city ofBodø,Norway. It has one of the strongest tidal currents in the world.[5][4]Whirlpools up to 10 metres (33 ft) in diameter and 5 metres (16 ft) in depth are formed when the current is at its strongest.

Moskstraumen

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The maelstrom off Norway as illustrated byOlaus Magnuson theCarta Marina,1539.
Main article:Moskstraumen

Moskstraumen or Moske-stroom is an unusual system of whirlpools in the open seas in theLofoten Islandsoff theNorwegian coast.[6]It is the second strongest whirlpool in the world with flow currents reaching speeds as high as 32 km/h (20 mph).[4]This is supposedly the whirlpool depicted in Olaus Magnus's map, labeled as "Horrenda Caribdis" (Charybdis).[7]

The Moskstraumen is formed by the combination of powerful semi-diurnal tides and the unusual shape of theseabed,with a shallow ridge between theMoskenesøyaandVærøyaislands which amplifies and whirls the tidal currents.[8]

The fictional depictions of the Moskstraumen byEdgar Allan Poe,Jules Verne,andCixin Liudescribe it as a gigantic circular vortex that reaches the bottom of the ocean, when in fact it is a set of currents and crosscurrents with a rate of 18 km/h (11 mph).[9]Poe described this phenomenon in his short story "A Descent into the Maelström",which in 1841 was the first to use the wordmaelstromin the English language;[8]in this story related to the Lofoten Maelstrom, two fishermen are swallowed by the maelstrom while one survives.[10]

Corryvreckan

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Main article:Corryvreckan
Corryvreckan whirlpool

The Corryvreckan is a narrowstraitbetween the islands ofJuraandScarba,inArgyll and Bute,on the northern side of theGulf of Corryvreckan,Scotland.It is the third-largest whirlpool in the world.[4]Floodtidesand inflow from theFirth of Lorneto the west can drive the waters of Corryvreckan to waves of more than 9 metres (30 ft), and the roar of the resulting maelstrom, which reaches speeds of 18 km/h (11 mph), can be heard 16 km (10 mi) away. Though it was classified initially as non-navigable by theRoyal Navyit was later categorized as "extremely dangerous".[4]

A documentary team from Scottish independent producersNorthlight Productionsonce threw amannequininto the Corryvreckan ( "the Hag" ) with ahigh-visibility vestanddepth gauge.The mannequin was swallowed and spat up far down current with a depth gauge reading of 262 m (860 ft) and evidence of being dragged along the bottom for a great distance.[11]

Niagara Whirlpool

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Niagara Whirlpool

About three miles (4.8 kilometers) downstream fromNiagara Fallsis theNiagara Whirlpool.Located mostly in Canada and partially in the United States, the whirlpool is crossed by theWhirlpool Aero Car.[12]

The basin of the whirlpool is 1,700 feet (518 meters) long and 1,200 feet (365 meters) wide. Its maximum water depth is 125 feet (38 meters).[13]

Other notable maelstroms and whirlpools

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Old Sow whirlpoolis located between Deer Island,New Brunswick,Canada, and Moose Island, Eastport,Maine,USA. It is given the epithet "pig-like" as it makes a screeching noise when the vortex is at its full fury and reaches speeds of as much as 27.6 km/h (17.1 mph).[8]The smaller whirlpools around this Old Sow are known as "Piglets".[4]

Naruto whirlpools

TheNaruto whirlpoolsare located in the Naruto Strait near Awaji Island in Japan, which have speeds of 26 km/h (16 mph).[8]

Skookumchuck Narrowsis a tidal rapids that develops whirlpools, on theSunshine Coast,British Columbia,Canada with speeds of the current exceeding 30 km/h (19 mph).[8]

French Pass(Te Aumiti) is a narrow and treacherous stretch of water that separates D'Urville Island from the north end of the South Island of New Zealand. In 2000 a whirlpool there caught student divers, resulting in fatalities.[14]

A short-lived whirlpool sucked in a portion of the 1,300-acre (530 ha)Lake PeigneurinLouisiana, United Statesafter a drilling mishap on November 20, 1980. This was not a naturally occurring whirlpool, but a disaster caused by underwater drillers breaking through the roof of a salt mine. The lake then drained into the mine until the mine filled and the water levels equalized, but the formerly 10-foot (3.0 m) deep lake was now 1,300 feet (400 m) deep. This mishap caused a sinkhole, and in the end, resulted in the destruction of five houses, the loss of nineteen barges and eight tug boats, oil rigs, a mobile home, trees, acres of land, and most of a botanical garden. The adjacent settlement of Jefferson Island was reduced in area by 10%. A crater 0.5 miles (0.8 km) across was left behind. Nine of the barges, which had sunk, later resurfaced after the whirlpool subsided.[15][16][17]

A more recent example of an artificial whirlpool that received significant media coverage occurred in early June 2015, when an intake vortex formed inLake Texoma,on the Oklahoma–Texas border, near the floodgates of the dam that forms the lake. At the time of the whirlpool's formation, the lake was being drained after reaching its highest level ever. TheArmy Corps of Engineers,which operates the dam and lake, expected that the whirlpool would last until the lake reached normal seasonal levels by late July.[18]

Dangers

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An illustration from Jules Verne's essay "Edgard Poë et ses œuvres" (Edgar Poe and his Works,1862) drawn by Frederic Lix or Yan' Dargent.

Powerful whirlpools have killed unlucky seafarers, but their power tends to be exaggerated by laymen.[19]One of the few reports of a large disaster comes from the fourteenth-centuryMali EmpirerulerMansa Musa,as reported by a contemporary,Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari:

The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning Atlantic), and wanted to reach that (end) and obstinately persisted in the design. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, like many others full of gold, water and victuals sufficient for several years. He ordered the chief (admiral) not to return until they had reached the extremity of the ocean, or if they had exhausted the provisions and the water. They set out. Their absence extended over a long period, and, at last, only one boat returned. On our questioning, the captain said: 'Prince, we have navigated for a long time, until we saw in the midst of the ocean as if a big river was flowing violently. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me. As soon as any of them reached this place, it drowned in the whirlpool and never came out. I sailed backward to escape this current.'[20]

Tales like those byPaul the Deacon,Edgar Allan Poe,andJules Verneare entirely fictional.[21]

However, temporary whirlpools caused by major engineering disasters, such as theLake Peigneurdisaster, have been recorded as capable of submerging medium-sized watercraft such as barges and tugboats.[22]

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Besides Poe and Verne, another literary source is of the 1500s,Olaus Magnus,a Swedish bishop, who had stated that a maelstrom more powerful than the one written about in theOdysseysucked in ships, which sank to the bottom of the sea, and evenwhaleswere pulled in.Pytheas,the Greek historian, also mentioned that maelstroms swallowed ships and threw them up again.[citation needed]

The monsterCharybdisofGreek mythologywas later rationalized as a whirlpool, which sucked entire ships into its fold in the narrow coast ofSicily,a disaster faced by navigators.[23]

During the 8th century,Paul the Deacon,who had lived among the Belgii, describedtidal boresand the maelstrom for a Mediterranean audience unused to such violent tidal surges:[24]

Not very far from this shore... toward the western side, on which the ocean main lies open without end, is that very deep whirlpool of waters which we call by its familiar name "the navel of the sea". This is said to suck in the waves and spew them forth again twice every day.... They say there is another whirlpool of this kind between the island of Britain and the province ofGalicia,and with this fact the coasts of the Seine region and of Aquitaine agree, for they are filled twice a day with such sudden inundations that any one who may by chance be found only a little inward from the shore can hardly getaway. I have heard a certain high nobleman of theGaulsrelating that a number of ships, shattered at first by a tempest, were afterward devoured by this sameCharybdis.And when one only out of all the men who had been in these ships, still breathing, swam over the waves, while the rest were dying, he came, swept by the force of the receding waters, up to the edge of that most frightful abyss. And when now he beheld yawning before him the deep chaos whose end he could not see, and half dead from very fear, expected to be hurled into it, suddenly in a way that he could not have hoped he was cast upon a certain rock and sat him down.

— Paul the Deacon,History of the Lombards,i.6

Three of the most notable literary references to the Lofoten Maelstrom date from the nineteenth century. The first is a short story byEdgar Allan Poenamed "A Descent into the Maelström"(1841). The second isTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas(1870), a novel byJules Verne.At the end of this novel,Captain Nemoseems to commit suicide, sending hisNautilussubmarine into the Maelstrom (although in Verne'ssequelNemo and theNautiluswere seen to have survived). The "Norway maelstrom" is also mentioned inHerman Melville'sMoby-Dick.[25]

In theLife ofSt Columba,the author,Adomnan of Iona,attributes to the saint miraculous knowledge of a particular bishop who sailed into a whirlpool off the coast of Ireland. In Adomnan's narrative, he quotes Columba saying[26]

Cólman mac Beognai has set sail to come here and is now in great danger in the surging tides of the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. Sitting in the prow, he lifts up his hands to heaven and blesses the turbulent, terrible seas. Yet the Lord terrifies him in this way, not so that the ship in which he sits should be overwhelmed and wrecked by the waves, but rather to rouse him to pray more fervently that he may sail through the peril and reach us here.

The Corryvreckan whirlpool plays a key role in the 1945Powell and PressburgerfilmI Know Where I'm Going!.Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is determined to get to the Isle of Kiloran and marry her fiancé. Dangerous weather delays her crossing, and her determination becomes desperate when she realizes that she is falling in love with Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey). Against the advice of experienced folk, she offers a young fisherman a huge sum of money to take her over. At the last moment, Royal Naval Officer Torquil steps into the boat, and after a squall knocks the engine out of commission, they face the whirlpool. Torquil manages to repair the engine before the tide turns, and they return to the mainland. This part of the picture uses footage Powell filmed, while tied to a mast to leave both hands free for the camera, at Corryvreckan, incorporated into scenes shot in a huge tank at the studio.[27]

In the 2007 filmPirates of the Caribbean: At World's End,the final battle between theBlack Pearland theFlying Dutchmantakes place with both ships sailing inside a giant whirlpool which appears to be over a kilometer wide and several hundred meters deep. The fantasy novelsEldestandThe Bellmaker(otherwise unconnected) both feature a scene where the protagonists' ship escapes pursuit by successfully navigating a massive whirlpool, while the pursuing vessel fails to do so and is dragged under.

Etymology

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A whirlpool in a glass of water

One of the earliest uses in English of theScandinavianwordmalströmormalstrømwas byEdgar Allan Poein his short story "A Descent into the Maelström"(1841). The Nordic word itself is derived from theDutchwordmaelstrom(pronounced[ˈmaːlstroːm]ⓘ;modern spellingmaalstroom), frommalen('to mill' or 'to grind') andstroom('stream'), to form the meaning 'grinding current' or literally 'mill-stream', in the sense of milling (grinding) grain.[28]

See also

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References

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  1. ^"Whirlpool - Facts and Information".World of Phenomena.Retrieved28 October2020.
  2. ^10 Magnificent Maelstroms.WebEcoist. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  3. ^Carreck, Rosalind, ed. (1982).The Family Encyclopedia of Natural History.The Hamlyn Publishing Group. p. 246.ISBN0-7112-0225-7.
  4. ^abcdefDoyle, James (1 March 2012).A Young Scientist's Guide to Defying Disasters.Gibbs Smith. p. 15.ISBN978-1-4236-2441-7.
  5. ^"Er Saltstraumen egentlig verdens sterkeste tidevannsstrøm?"(English: Is Saltstraumen really the worlds strongest tidal current?), from NRK ( nrk.no), 7 May 2016, Accessed 17 January 2021
  6. ^Encyclopædia Britannica, 1958 edition.
  7. ^Nigg, Joseph(2014),Sea Monsters: A Voyage around the World's Most Beguiling Map,University of Chicago Press, p. 122,ISBN978-0-226-92518-9
  8. ^abcdeCompton, Nic (28 July 2013).Why Sailors Can't Swim and Other Marvellous Maritime Curiosities.Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 78–79.ISBN978-1-4081-9263-4.
  9. ^B. Gjevik, H. Moe and A Ommundseb, "Strong Topographic Enhancement of Tidal Currents: Tales of the Maelstrom", University of Oslo, working paper, 5 September 1997. A condensed version published asGjevik, B.; Moe, H.; Ommundsen, A. (1997)."Sources of the Maelstrom"(PDF).Nature.388(6645): 837–838.Bibcode:1997Natur.388..837G.doi:10.1038/42159.S2CID205030149.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 14 April 2004.
  10. ^James Kenney (19 December 2012).Thriving in the Crosscurrent: Clarity and Hope in a Time of Cultural Sea Change.Quest Books. pp. 143–.ISBN978-0-8356-3019-1.
  11. ^"Equinox: Lethal Seas".Archived fromthe originalon 20 March 2014.Retrieved2 February2016.UK and US co-production by Northlight, "Lethal Seas" UK Channel 4, "Sea Twister!" US Discovery Channel, covers several notable maelstroms.
  12. ^Dombrowski, Joel A. (2020).Niagara Falls: With Buffalo.Avalon Publishing.ISBN9781640493940.
  13. ^"Niagara Falls Geology: Facts & Figures".Niagara Parks.Government of Ontario. 2023.Retrieved23 July2023.
  14. ^Smith, I R (14 April 2003)."In the matter of an inquest into the deaths of Narelle Taniko te Pure, Ricki Graeme McDonald and Michael David Welsh"(PDF).Nelson District Coroner. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 26 January 2016.Retrieved2 February2016– via Dive New Zealand.
  15. ^Stephen Pile (4 October 2012).The Not Terribly Good Book of Heroic Failures: An intrepid selection from the original volumes.Faber & Faber. pp. 146–.ISBN978-0-571-27734-6.
  16. ^Richard Heggen (16 January 2015).Underground Rivers: From the River Styx to the Rio San Buenaventura, with occasional diversions.Richard Heggen. pp. 1108–. GGKEY:BS7JB1BB957.
  17. ^"And away goes the lake down the drain!".Archive of tripod.Retrieved23 May2016.
  18. ^Smith, Chelsi (8 June 2015)."Levels at Lake Texoma decrease; rare look at intake vortex".Sherman, TX:KXII-TV. Archived fromthe originalon 30 June 2015.Retrieved30 June2015.
  19. ^MythBusters Episode 56: Killer Whirlpool.Mythbustersresults. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  20. ^Mohammed Hamidullah."Echos of What Lies Behind the 'Ocean of Fogs' in Muslim Historical Narratives".Muslim Heritage.Retrieved27 June2015.(Quoting from Al-Umari 1927,q.v.)
  21. ^Paul the Deacon,History of the Lombards(8th century AD);Edgar Allan Poe,"A Descent into the Maelström"(1841); andJules Verne,Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas(1870).
  22. ^"An 'End of the World' Scene: Earth Swallows Lake, Oil Rig - The Washington Post".The Washington Post.
  23. ^Andrews, Tamra (2000).Dictionary of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Sky.Oxford University Press. p. 171.ISBN978-0-19-513677-7.Retrieved25 May2016.
  24. ^Deacon, Paul the (3 June 2011).History of the Lombards.University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 8.ISBN978-0-8122-0558-9.
  25. ^Herman MelvilleMoby-DickChapter 36,Wikisource.
  26. ^Adomnan of Iona. Life of St Columba. Penguin Books, 1995
  27. ^"I Know Where I'm Going (1945) - Articles - TCM".Turner Classic Movies.Retrieved13 August2020.
  28. ^The Merriam-Webster new book of word histories.Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1991. p.300.ISBN978-0-87779-603-9.Retrieved25 May2016.

Further reading

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  • Baron PA, Willeke K (1986) Respirable droplets from whirlpools: measurements of size distribution and estimation of disease potential. Environ Res 39, 8–18.
  • Blake, John Lauris (1845).The Wonders of the Ocean.Henry & Sweetlands. pp.50–53.
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