Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro

by Rachel Slade

Wind speed and force have an exponential relationship, meaning that as the wind notches up, its force doubles, then triples, and then quadruples, and so on. It’s based on a simple formula: wind pressure per square foot = 0.00256 x (wind speed)2. Put another way, between 1 mile per hour and 35 miles per hour, the wind’s force against the boat runs roughly six to nine times its velocity. That’s the kind of incremental change that the human brain can handle. But over the next 35 miles per hour, its force rapidly grows to eighteen times its velocity. At 112 miles per hour, the wind’s force is thirty times its velocity—you can’t stand upright in that kind of wind no matter how far you lean; first you’ll slide across the ground, then you’ll get thrown backward into an uncontrollable somersault.