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.

Evidence

Spanish Armada (Wikipedia)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Surviving Cadiz permanently cured English sailors of fearing shore guns, galleys, and fire-ships. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 243; English gun tactics initially failed to break Spanish formation; The Spanish never regained the weather-gauge for the next nine days. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 618 (+11 more)

Related

• The English sent fire ships into the Spanish anchorage at Calais, and prevailing winds and storms ultimately scattered and destroyed the Spanish fleet on its retreat. (similarity 0.90)
• No Spanish ship was lost other than the eight fire ships; the fireships’ main effect was forcing the Spanish to scatter. (similarity 0.89)
• Ships lost their anchors, and drifted out to sea to avoid catching fire, causing the Spanish ships’ formation to be completely broken. (similarity 0.89)
• The Spanish ships’ heavy guns. They sustained serious damage and casualties without being able to reply effectively. Three Spanish ships were… (similarity 0.86)
• The Spanish never regained the weather-gauge for the next nine days. (similarity 0.86)
• The Armada achieved a smooth crescent formation that awed experienced English seamen. (similarity 0.86)
• On the night of 7 August, English fireships broke the Spanish formation, and Medina Sidonia’s ships ‘scattered in a…’ (similarity 0.85)
• Though not a single Spanish ship was, in fact, torched by the attack, the fireships caused many to cut their anchor cables in panic to avoid… (similarity 0.85)
• The fireships did almost no physical damage; not one Spanish ship actually caught fire, but the Spanish did not know they were ordinary. (similarity 0.85)
• The shore guns nor the galleys, nor the fireships did the slightest harm. (similarity 0.84)
• The Armada could not board the faster English ships even with the weather-gauge (similarity 0.83)
• The Spanish would be forced to cut their anchor cables as they tried to avoid being burned, throwing the fleet into confusion and making it far easier for the English to attack. (similarity 0.83)
• The English captains saw fireships as the only way to dislodge the Armada. (similarity 0.83)
• English gunfire had crippled no Spanish ship through deliberate action (similarity 0.82)
• It was bad luck, bad tactics and bad weather that defeated the Spanish Armada—not the derring-do displayed by Elizabeth’s intrepid sea dogs. (similarity 0.82)