Sturdee's ships did not sortie from the harbor until 09:50, but they could see the retreating German ships on the southwest horizon. The "Invincible"s, fresh out of dry dock, had a advantage over Spee's ships which all had fouled bottoms that limited their speeds to at best. The light cruiser was lagging behind the other ships and "Inflexible" opened fire on her when the range dropped to at 12:55. "Invincible" opened fire shortly afterwards and both ships began straddling "Leipzig" as the range closed to . At 13:20, Spee ordered his squadron to separate and ordered his light cruisers to turn to the southwest while his armoured cruisers turned to the north east to cover their retreat. The German ships opened fire first at 13:30 and scored their first hit at 13:44 when hit "Invincible", although the shell burst harmlessly on the belt armour. Both sides fired rapidly during the first half-hour of the engagement before Sturdee opened up the range a little to put his ships outside the effective range of the German guns. British gunnery was very poor during this period, scoring only four hits out of 210 rounds fired. The primary cause was the smoke from the guns and funnels as the British were downwind of the Germans.