The Way to Avoid the Centre of Our Violent Gales

Excerpt from The Way to Avoid the Centre of Our Violent GalesThe dangers to a vessel in a Cyclone are three. The veering of the wind; the exces sive violence of it near the centre; and the sudden calms and shifts and awful sea at the centre. All these involve, as on well know, damage and loss by dismasting, straining, leaks, and distress of various kinds up to foundering; and you will find in the present Chapter ample rules to show you that if involved in a Cyclone, even with a fair wind, you should often heave to, not to approach the centre, or with a foul one that you should, if the weather possibly admits of It, stand back: that if you have to heave to, on will, if you take the right tack, have both the veerings of the wind, and the shift 0 it such, that you will always come up to it, and run no risk of being taken aback; while it hove to on the wrong one, you will certainly have the wind heading you off, and in all probability be taken aback if it shifts. Of the dangers in all these cases every seaman is aware, as for instance that of getting stern-way in a hurricane; and it is one, and not the least of the practical a plications of our Science, that there is scarw yet a case on record, in all the 10 s that ve been examined, where ships which have sufl'ered in a Cyclone might not ve escaped with far less lo if they could not have avoided the Cyclone, or perhaps without any, by due attention our rules; and we can pretty nearly demonstrate also, that many which have foundered must have done so from utter ignor ance of the danger they were running into!About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.