Drake’s Cape St Vincent strike doomed the Armada through water loss

Evidence

Every available cask and butt had been filled at Corunna; there should have been enough for three months. But again casks leaked, and some when opened held no more than a few inches of green slime. It was now seen how deadly was the blow that Drake had struck at Cape St Vincent. With a long hard voyage ahead squadron after squadron reported only enough water to last, with the severest rationing, for a month or less. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 821

It was now seen how deadly was the blow that Drake had struck at Cape St Vincent. With a long hard voyage ahead squadron after squadron reported only enough water to last, with the severest rationing, for a month or less. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 821

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off Drake’s earlier Cape St Vincent water-barrel raid from earlier in the book — the strategic payoff lands here. — connects to: Parma likely foresaw the Armada campaign was doomed from its start — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 727; Drake’s destruction of seasoned timber caused the Armada’s provisions to rot prematurely — John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake, 876; Drake reported burning 16-17 hundred hoops and pipe-staves that would have made 25-30 thousand tons of casks, forcing Spain a year later to supply the Armada’s food under that loss. — Drake’s Raid on Cadiz (+4 more)
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 821

Library Connections

• Drake’s destruction of seasoned timber caused the Armada’s provisions to rot prematurely #expands (0.85) — John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake, 876