Herakles (pusher) the fuel supply and lubrication system due to the violent pitching of the vessel were not ruled out. On 2 March 2004 the weather in the Bothnian Sea gradually developed into a force 10 storm on the Beaufort scale, with average wind speed around and gusts exceeding . At midnight, shortly before "Herakles-Bulk" sank, the ten-minute average at Svenska Högarn was with three-second gusts of almost . The freezing temperatures combined with strong wind and high waves resulted in fast icing of the ship structures. In 1992 the Finnish Maritime Administration issued a wind limit of for "Herakles" due to
Ode to the West Wind a prophet who does not only bring "black rain, and fire, and hail" (28), but who "will burst" (28) it. The "locks of the approaching storm" (23) are the messengers of this bursting: the "clouds". Shelley also mentions that when the West Wind blows, it seems to be singing a funeral song about the year coming to an end and that the sky covered with a dome of clouds looks like a "sepulchre", i.e., a burial chamber or grave for the dying year or the year which is coming to an end. Shelley in this canto "expands his vision from