Pampeiro and Carpenteira

17 March 2013

Specially for our Irish guest crewmember: Happy St Patricks Day! 
After our departure from Morro de São Paulo we sailed fully rigged for about 3 hours. Until the wind decreased, we decided to turn on the engine to come closer to our destination. During the evening showers were gathering around us, so we hoped for a bit of wind but this wasn’t the case. 
During the night we tried to set sails but due to the swell and little wind the sails were banging too much. Our hope was for some wind from shore in the morning but no luck with that either. Generally the wind along the coast comes from the northeast, but we only had that while we were anchoring in Salvador. 
We are standing outside in our raingear and with a temperature of 35 degrees we are reaching boiling point. Enough time to study the pilots of the Brazilian coast. There are two common weather phenomenons: Pampeiro and Carpenteira. 
Pampeiro is a phenomenon that appears when a cold front from Argentina comes to closer to Brazil. Temperatures drop, air pressure rises and the wind turns to the southwest with 40 knots or more during showers. The intensity and duration of the storm depends on temperature: when the humidity is low and with wind from the southwest weather conditions can improve quickly. But when humidity is high and the weather unstable a storm can take up to 2 to 3 days. 
Carpenteira is a very strong southeast wind that arises in Southern Brazil. When a cold front passes by. During the storm the wind can increase to 40 knots or even more. Ships have to be careful that they don’t get to close to shore and get caught at lee shore.