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blast, for the heavy and irregular sea there threatened every moment to swamp the ship.
During a light breeze, while the centre was passing, the Captain wore ship, and put her on the port tack to prevent (as he says) the ship from foundering against the lee sea, when the shift should come from the N.W.; and by this manœuvre he evidently saved his ship: for although somewhat out of order according to the Law of Storms—as he was in the right hand semicircle still—yet subsequent events proved that he was right. The events to which I refer are the incurving of the winds, evidently caused by coming in contact with the chain of Islands composing the Loochoo and Linschoten groups, and as the winds here represented are those that were felt at the ship, it will be noticed that as the ship drifted to the E’d, the winds became more Southerly; and the inference drawn from this fact is that the Island of Oho Sima (which is high land) arrested the course of the wind, and diverted it to a more Northerly direction, so much so, that, when the ship bore N.N.E. 12 E. 23 miles from the Northern point of Oho Sima, the wind at the N. W. by W. Typhoon point, was actually S. W. drawing up between the Islands of Oho Sima and Tokasima (being diverted seven points); and had the ship been on the starboard tack then, she would have been taken aback by every shift, got sternway, and probably foundered.
If this be true of Oho Sima, it is also true of any other similar land, and an important lesson is taught by Captain Quayle’s experience, viz:—when struck by a typhoon in the vicinity of land, remember that the contact of the wind with land diverts its course in proportion to the angle of contact, and, therefore, make proper allowance for such change in locating the centre, or in determining the tack on which to heave to.
This Typhoon may be cited as a remarkable instance of the in-curving of the winds by contact with land—which is here clearly established—but I doubt very much if any considerable out-curving of the wind could ever take place, even should the angle of contact with the land be such as
