By Ken Wells

Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

13 January 1993

Copyright Dow Jones & Co.

     SUMBURGH HEAD, Scotland -- Alexandros Gelis, captain of the oil tanker Braer, and John Rowland, a security guard, have something in common. They've both been mugged by the fiercest denizen of the Shetland Islands: the wind.

     The wind blew Capt. Gelis's powerless 797-foot, 45,000-ton tanker onto the rocks near Fitful Head, unleashing a major oil spill. Mr. Rowland's encounter, though not nearly as disastrous, was still hair-raising. On New Year's Day, 1992, the wind picked up the local resident -- all 250 pounds of him -- and blew him into a ditch about 10 feet away.

     He had an inkling this might happen after seeing a 15-foot fishing boat sail through the air above his head. Shetland winds occasionally turn humans, and even cows, into kites. Still, the flying boat, previously strapped down in a neighbor's yard, surprised him. "When a Shetlander ties down a boat," Mr. Rowland explains, "he really ties it down."

     In most of the world, winds come and go. Here they blow, blow, blow. They have blown fiercely and unceasingly, with gusts of 100 miles per hour, since the Jan. 5 wreck of the Braer. Visitors are astonished. Locals are not.

     In January 1983, gale-force winds blew for 29 straight days. The New Year's wind that blew Mr. Rowland off the ground reached gusts of 201 mph on the Isle of Unst north of here. This is an unofficial reading: The official weather-service wind gauge blew away.

     If accurate, the gust easily surpasses the 177 mph wind that the Guinness Book of World Records says blasted the Shetlands in 1962. Few quarrel with the 201 mph figure, since that same gale blew a bird-watcher out of a stone hut and over a cliff several hundred feet away. She died.

     The winds begin blowing here in September and often don't stop until April. That's the official gale season. "Of course, we get gales at other times -- June, July, at any time," says Alen Gair, a Lerwick weather forecaster.

     The reason why gales lash this place is no mystery, though the gales themselves often do mysterious things. The Shetlands sit squarely in the path of choice for icy storms that blow out of the sea near Iceland and howl across the North Sea before slamming into Europe. They usually hit the Shetlands just about the time they've gained full speed.

     "Oh, it's a lovely place to fly," says Bill Roy, a helicopter pilot for British International Helicopters, which ferries workers to North Sea oil rigs near here. "I like the fogs that move at 80 mph. They make life interesting."

     Then there's the phenomenon called "vortex ring" -- a hellish downdraft. It was blamed for the crash of a helicopter offshore here last March that killed 11 people. Computer simulations based on the chopper's data recorder showed that, theoretically, the craft was flying with enough power to safely navigate prevailing gales. But it was suddenly batted out of the air and into the ocean by a huge fist of wind.

     Over at the lifeboat station at Lerwick, the Shetlands' biggest fishing port, the wind is the main source of business. "Most of our rescue calls are in Force 8 (about 50 mph) winds or better," says Magnus Shearer, secretary of the local lifeboat association. This means putting a 52-foot rescue boat into seas that commonly run to 50 feet, though the odd 100-foot wave is a well-known phenomenon here.

     "Yes, you could say it gets rough out there," says Mr. Shearer. Of course, it can even get a little rough onshore. Mr. Shearer has an acquaintance who had a cow blown out of a pasture a few years back. "Maybe there should be signs on Shetland: Beware of flying cows," he adds.

     "Oh, sure, my cats fly all the time," says Stephen Chambers, a research scientist who lives in a stone house perched on a bluff over the sea near here. "You kick them out the door for a little exercise and, poof, they're gone. It's quite funny to see."

     How far do cats get before landing? Mr. Chambers, quaffing a pint of ale in a local pub to escape a blizzard that is blowing over the Shetlands at this very moment, gestures to a wall about 15 feet away. "But it depends on how strong the wind is, really." (Yes, the cats always land on their feet.)

     Mr. Chambers, a physicist, explains a preflight phenomenon that affects humans shortly before they are swept off their feet here. "We call it Shetlands Dancing. You are grabbed by the wind and twirled round-and-round. Then you're usually blown over." This is why wind-wary Shetlanders always walk downwind of roads, so as to not end up in the path of oncoming cars.

     Drivers also take peculiar precautions. Mr. Chambers, whose vehicle is a two-ton Land Rover, says he drives with a quarter of a ton of coal in the trunk. "Most people have something similar to keep them on the road," he says. Mr. Chambers added the coal after a recent flying experience in his Rover. "I was airborne for at least 15 feet," he says. "That was enough."

     Houses seldom blow over here because ancient Shetlanders, realizing that the wind wasn't to be trifled with, built them out of stone with walls two to three feet thick. Boats don't fare as well. Wrecks on the shore here are battered to smithereens by winds and waves, usually within a day or two, and then disappear.

     The tanker Braer was made of slightly sterner stuff. She lasted for a week before being pounded into four pieces yesterday. The same wind that is being blamed for the wreck, however, may yet get credit for limiting the damage of the ensuing 25-million-gallon oil spill. A lot of the oil is being churned up, broken down and blown away into the air.

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