Seventy-two ironclads swept past the visiting Dominion Premiers at Spithead, the roadstead off Portsmouth.
It was the worst since 1889, when another keening, killing wind sank three American and three German warships in Apia roadstead.
Within the shelter of the five-mile-long roadstead, even lightering in supplies would be far easier and faster than in the wide-open Bay of the Seine, or in the tiny fishing .