El descubrimiento de la Isla: On the sailing route to India

The discovery of Tristan da Cunha was no accident - Tristan was on the preferred route out from Europe to the Indian Ocean in the days of sail. The Dutch East India Company insisted from 1617 that their sea captains zigzagged the Atlantic, picking up the North-East Trade Winds from Europe towards the West Indies, hugging the Brazilian coast where the southerly flowing Brazil Current would prevent them being becalmed in the Equatorial Doldrums, then picking up the reliable westerlies towards the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean. It was thus that Tristan was on the ‘Maritime Motorway’ of the 17th, 18th and early 19th Centuries.