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
Beaufort scale during the voyage of HMS "Beagle" under Captain Robert FitzRoy, later to set up the first Meteorological Office (Met Office) in Britain giving regular weather forecasts. In the early 19th century, naval officers made regular weather observations, but there was no standard scale and so they could be very subjective – one man's "stiff breeze" might be another's "soft breeze". Beaufort succeeded in standardising the scale. The initial scale of thirteen classes (zero to twelve) did not reference wind speed numbers but related qualitative wind conditions to effects on the sails of a frigate, then the main ship of the