What and where is the longest distance you can travel in a boat in a straight line without hitting any land?

Question

You know, not running into islands or reefs. This imaginary boat doesn't have much draft, either. Just curious if someone has worked this out ever.

By the way, around and around the Southern Ocean is a curved line....

I'm looking at Great Circle Routes. Google Earth's line or path aren't functional enough for this question because it appears to be possible to get much more than half way around. Longest I've tried so far appears to go from the coast of Kamchatka through the Aleutians to between Antartica and South America, then up the east coast of Africa, maybe all the way to south Asia.

Still curious...

Answer 1

If you go to Google Earth, you will be able to use the Ruler tool and can draw a straight (geodetic) line from somewhere in the Arctic Ocean just past the bump in South America to just off the the coast of Antarctica. It is about 11,000 miles long. The problem being: Just where is the ice. It doesn't appear that you can do the same in the Pacific because of an island just south of the Bering strait that blocks a straight shot. Approximating a circle with a dozen or so points, the route around 60°S is about 12,000 miles, but is a circle a straight line on a globe where a straight line is considered to be the shortest route?

Answer 2

Between South America and Antartica, there is no land all the way around (60 degrees latitude south). The wind here reaches very high speeds since ocean currents keep the wind blowing in the same direction and there are no obstacles (such as land) to slow the wind down. I'm not sure if this is the longest strait line, but you could keep going around in circles forever without any obstruction. Search drake's passage. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

<>Now that's an interesting question. I don't have a factual answer for you, but my guess would be from the coast of North America out past Australia somewhere. I'd like to know if someone has a "real" answer for you!