After Tuesday morning’s fight off Portland Bill there were recurrent periods of dead calm, some light variable airs, and the rest of the time a very gentle breeze breathing from some quarter of the west. The Spanish could scarcely have asked for better weather. It enabled them to keep their close formation with a minimum of risk and trouble, it deprived the English of part of the advantage of their superior agility

Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish A…, loc. 682