Francis Beaufort scale, decoded as 32–38 mph, or a "moderate Gale". Beaufort, like other patrons of exploration, has had his name given to many geographical places. Among these: Beaufort created the Beaufort cipher. It is a substitution cipher similar to the Vigenère cipher. Francis Beaufort Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, KCB, FRS, FRGS, FRAS, MRIA (; 27 May 1774 – 17 December 1857) was an Irish hydrographer and officer in the Royal Navy. Beaufort was the creator of the Beaufort Scale for indicating wind force. Francis Beaufort was descended from French Protestant Huguenots, who fled the French Wars of Religion in the
Wind stress of heat and mass between the water and the atmosphere. The air blowing parallel to a water body imparts motion to the surface water by shear action. This is a downward transfer of momentum from the air to the water that ultimately generates a drift current underneath. The water surface also deforms under the action of wind and becomes wavy for increasing wind speeds, which modifies the grip that the wind has on the surface itself. The mechanics of the interaction between wind and water becomes thus increasingly complex. The Beaufort scale, for example, shows the correspondence between wind speed