Excerpt from The Modern Law of Storms

BY the term Law of Storms is meant, as sailors understand it, a code of rules or directions for manoeuvring a vessel so as to avoid the centre, or most dangerous portion, of a storm, and, as a secondary con sideration, to take advantage of its favorable winds to prosecute the voyage. To a landsman it is difiicult to appreciate the many and vary ing considerations that enter as factors in this question. Here on land our position is fixed we take storms as they come, and make the best of it. It is hardly once in a lifetime that an approaching storm threatens us with danger to life or limb, and all that is required of the average individual is to know enough to go in the house when it rains. Moreover, the great weather bureaus that are now established in the leading civilized nations, although a natural and legitimate growth, have a certain tendency, like other great monopolies, to crush out individuality, especially anything that may look like opposition. At sea, however, the case is widely different. The navigator is thrown upon his own resources entirely. He must decide from his own nu aided observations whether a storm is approaching, and, if so, whether it is likely to be of dangerous severity. He must then, first of all, try to avoid the most dangerous regions of the storm-field, allowing a fair margin for safety; to do this, he has to consider the character of his vessel, the amount of sea-room he has for manoeuvring (that is, the lay of the land, considered with reference to the winds and currents to be expected), the bearing and distance of the storm-centre, and the size, severity, velocity, and track of the storm. Secondly, he has to decide how he can best profit by the approaching storm to continue his voyage; to do this, he must understand the general character of the wind system, the probable track of the storm relative to his vessel's track, and the character of wind and weather following. Thus the law of storms is a very difi'erent thing to the practical navigator from what it is to the meteorologist, and in this article I shall confine my atten tion wholly to the practical side of the question.

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