They could have been going slower to try to let the storm pass or they might have pushing it to try to slip past. I'm having a hard time finding out exactly when they reported their last position off Crooked Key. Then we might be able to tell what speed they were making and what the strategy was. It's hard to understand why they wouldn't have taken steps to avoid the storm assuming they had the latest weather.
I read somewhere that Jacksonville to PR was 4 days.
In any case, there was a wager made and lost.
I’m more familiar with Great Lakes shipping. I was GM of a marine fueling business in Duluth-Superior for 16 years. We operated an 8,000 bbl lighter vessel in the harbor and had shore tanks at Two Harbors, Silver Bay and Taconite Harbor, MN.
The captain of our tanker put the last N6 fuel on the Ed Fitz.