Calm weather favored the Spanish close formation tactic in the Channel

Evidence

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 Armada, 682

Categorization

• SEED: The weather as a character in a naval campaign — setting the tactical stage as clear causal detail.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 682
• XREF: connects to: Spain held the weather-gauge but not full tactical surprise at Plymouth — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 599; An important reason why the English were able to defeat the Armada was that the wind blew the Spanish ships northwards, celebrated on a medal inscribed ‘God Blew and they were Scattered’. — God blew and they were scattered; No Spanish ships were burnt, but the crescent formation had been broken, and the fleet found itself too far leeward of Calais in the rising southwesterly wind. — Spanish Armada