False Cape Horn or Falso Cabo de Hornos is a headland at the south end of

Hoste Island Hoste Island () is one of the southernmost islands in Chile, lying south, across the Beagle Channel, from Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and west of Navarino Island, from which it is separated by the Murray Channel. Hoste Island has the souther ...

, 35 statute miles (56 km) northwest of

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...

, located at . False Cape Horn is the southernmost point of the large

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

s of the

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...

group, located close to the mainland of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. At least 100 ships were lost in the Cape Horn area between 1850 and 1900. There were three sailing routes through or around the Tierra del Fuego region:

Drake Passage The Drake Passage (referred to as Mar de Hoces Hoces Sea"in Spanish-speaking countries) is the body of water between South America's Cape Horn, Chile and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It connects the southwestern part of the Atla ...

(the one going around

Magellan Strait The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pass ...

, and

Beagle Channel Beagle Channel (; Yahgan: ''Onašaga'') is a strait in the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago, on the extreme southern tip of South America between Chile and Argentina. The channel separates the larger main island of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego f ...

. All three were perilous, but only Drake Passage offered unlimited maneuvering room. It became the preferred route. Since the winds in the area are prevailing westerlies, False Cape Horn is a

lee shore A lee shore, sometimes also called a leeward ( shore, or more commonly ), is a nautical term to describe a stretch of shoreline that is to the lee side of a vessel—meaning the wind is blowing towards land. Its opposite, the shore on the windward ...

which from the west superficially resembles the real Cape Horn to the south. If the officers and crew of a ship saw land off the starboard bow (to the south), there was virtually no chance of stopping or turning, or even slowing, a ship in time to avoid wrecking on the

Wollaston Islands The Wollaston Islands () are a group of islands in Chile south of Navarino Island and north of Cape Horn and east of the Hoste Island. The islands are ''Grevy'', ''Bayly'', ''Wollaston'' and ''Freycinet'', as well as the islets ''Dédalo'', ''S ...

. This mistake caused several shipwrecks. Administratively, False Cape Horn, which belongs to the Commune of Cabo de Hornos, is part of the Antártica Chilena Province of the Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region,

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

References

Headlands of Chile Landforms of Magallanes Region Landforms of Tierra del Fuego {{MagellanAntarctic-geo-stub

See also

References