The chart states that at Pwllfanog the Rise at springs is 19 feet. Therefor, and once again :- ........ Range = (Rise - 11.25) x 2, which gives us the Range at Pwllfanog as 15.5 feet at Ordinary Springs. Add 7% to this and we get 16.6 feet as the Range on the highest tide of the year. Half this Range (8.3 ft) plus 11.25 feet (MTL) plus the four foot sounding over Cheese Rock gives us the depth over the rock at High Water on the highest tide of the year as 23' 6". Working the sine formula on a Tidal Range of 16.6 ft. produces the red curve (a) in Fig. 8, which (just like eroneously working the depth on M. Bdge) again shows the ship would have bare clearance over the rock at L.pool -2.00 (0918 hours), yet again confirming Capt Hewitt's conviction "0920 hours and not one momenet before."

But there is something very wrong here. In Masefield Capt Goddard states: "on this transit I could run down to the narrowest part of the channel at the SW end of the Goredd Is where I would have four feet under my bottom",^{(Goddard_text.1.p_4 line 49)} an obvious reference to the least depth, which is Cheese Rock. But according to graph (a) in Fig. 8 (which derives from his own figures) he could not have had more than eighteen inches under his keel even on the top of High Water. Moreover graph (a) disturbingly bears not the slightest resemblance to Richard Jones' actual physical measurements. So let's look at this chart title a little more closely.

The title states: "soundings are reduced to LW springs, NE of Britannia Bridge for a rise and fall of 22 ¹/₂ feet, to the SW for 19 feet." So west of the bridge 19 feet is indeed both the Range and the Rise at Pwllfanog, but east of the bridge it's no longer the Rise, but it still remains the Range. Now why would Capt Goddard take the trouble to make special provision for this little bit of chart west of the bridge which is if no interest to anybody? For what this scrap of chart is worth he could well have left all soundings on the chart reduced for a rise and fall of 22¹/₂ feet. To introduce this quite unnecessary changed datum on the chart was to introduce inevitable further confusion. Indeed I venture to suggest that mischievously promoting such confusion was his sole reason for introducing it .. - .. but why? However, now that we know that east of the bridge 19 feet is the Range (not the Rise) at Pwllfanog, this paints a very different picture.

So instead of the 16.6 ft. Range we had previously concluded, adding the 7% to the 19 ft. Ordinary Springs Range at Pwllfanog now gives us a Range of 20.3 ft. on the highest tide of the year. Reworking the sine formula for this new Range produces the red curve (b) in Fig. 8, which as you see coincides precisely with Richard Jones' measurements, and it is this which clinches it for us. It's a great pity that Capt Hewitt didn't see the need to correlate soundings over Cheese Rock with the nearby tide board^{(see Note 11)} which would have eliminated all the guesswork.(a useful exercise for seamanship practical class) He too would then have realised the pifalls and confusions inherent in taking Capt Goddard's (unsigned) chart at face value, leaving him in harmony with the pilots and he would not have fatally delayed the ship until 0920.

Indeed, from curve (b) in Fig. 8 (and Richard Jones' measurements) the reality was the ship had 22 ft. over the rock as early as 0838 that morning (L.pool -2.40), and had no reason at all to be brought up at 0850 and held to for that vital 20 minutes at Pwllfanog. She could have been "kept going" at 0850 like the pilot wanted. Given the eight minutes the ship took between Pwllfanog and the bridge, this would have put him over the rock around 0858 (L.pool -2.20) with 23 feet of water and the tide behind him. Given Capt Goddard's "eighteen minutes between the bridges" in similar tidal circumstances, the ship would then have been under the Suspension Bridge around 0916, or about ten minutes before the tide turned that morning and we would not be talking about this today.

The limiting factor was, of course, the remaining strength of the following stream as much as half an hour before the reversal. But the fierce NW wind which promoted the severe conditions the ship was to run into would also have weakened the northeast-going stream making an earlier than usual transit possible.^{(page 5)} Not only was the pilot well content to "keep her going" at 0850, but that weakened flood stream would have warned him what was likely to happen, and by the manner of his statement, at 0850 he was plainly aware that there wasn't any time to be lost