🔍 Key Concepts

• Relative motion between your vessel and the hurricane (vector triangle of speeds and courses) • How a hurricane’s track and your position relative to it affect whether you are getting closer or farther from the eye • Idea of maximizing Closest Point of Approach (CPA) by choosing a course that moves you away from both the eye and its track

💭 Think About

• Sketch your vessel at the center of a plotting sheet, then plot the hurricane’s position 80 miles away on 070°T and its course of 270°T at 19 knots. From that, draw the hurricane’s track line. • For each possible course, think: does this move me toward the hurricane’s track, almost parallel to it, or away from it? Which general direction (quadrant) gives the greatest opening of bearing from the eye? • Compare your speed (11 knots) with the hurricane’s speed (19 knots). How does this speed difference limit which directions can actually increase your CPA over time?

✅ Before You Answer

• Verify which semicircle of the storm you are in (relative to its direction of motion 270°T). This tells you which side is generally safer to stay on. • Check whether your chosen course would cause the bearing of the eye to steadily increase or decrease over the next few hours; for maximum CPA, you want the bearing to open, not close. • Confirm that at 11 knots, your course does not let the hurricane’s 19‑knot motion overtake or cross ahead of you on a converging track; your vector should carry you away from both the eye and its projected track line.