Beaufort

Beaufort (pronounced boh-fert) (U) or boh-fort (non-U))

(1) A standardized measure of wind speed.

(2) An Anglo-French Family name (of late, re-purposed as a forename).

(3) A World War II era torpedo bomber built by the Bristol company.

1805: The Beaufort wind force scale was devised by Anglo-Irish Royal Navy hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort (1774–1857).  The pronunciation boh-fert is the accepted correct use for the scale, family name and most other purposes but in the US, where it’s used as a locality name, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, the common form is sometimes byoo-fert.  The family name Beaufort exists in both French and English (and was of Norman and French Huguenot origin), a habitational name from (Le) Beaufort, the name of several places in various parts of France notably in Nord Somme and Pas-de-Calais, the construct being the Old French beau (beautiful) + fort (literally “strong” but used also of forts & fortified castles).  In France, hereditary surnames were adopted according to fairly consistent rules and during the late medieval period, names that derived from localities became increasingly widespread.  In the late twentieth century, Beaufort came to be used when naming a child, one attraction being the possibility of nicknames like Bee, Beau & Fort.

Variations in the coats of arms of the Dukes of Beaufort.

One of the concepts which permits the modern, trans-nationally connected world economy to function as efficiently as it does is standardization.  Modern implementations include things like shipping containers which, with standardized features such as size, mounting & lifting points and methods of construction mean goods can be transported internationally with the assurance all ships, as well as road & rail transport can handle the thing in the same manner.  Additionally, it makes more efficient the construction for facilities like sea-ports and rail-heads because they’re essentially the same, anywhere in the world.  That’s an example of change which could implemented because it could be phased in over decades as ships were replaced & railway rolling-stock upgraded while existing port infrastructure could be modified although, as the container ships increased in size, the trend increasingly was for fewer and larger ports.  Road transport was less affected, the prime-movers unchanged and a substantial part of the trailer fleet easily modified and trucks never increased in size to the extent engineering made possible because local authorities imposed restrictions in deference to roads which were built to withstand only certain weight-loadings.

Some things however are difficult to standardize, however desirable a change might be.  The fact that there’s so much diversity in whether road vehicles drive on the left or right of the road is due to many factors, some of which date from antiquity, reflected even today in the need for many manufacturers to maintain separate production lines to accommodate the need to built vehicles with steering wheels on either side.  That of course sounds silly it’s how historical inertia operates, local practices becoming set traditions hundreds or even thousands of years ago.  Other traditions came more recently.  Long before they brought cars and trucks, the European colonial powers also often built the first major networks of roads and they imposed the rules with which they were familiar, the British keeping their horses to the left, the French to the right.  Italian colonialists in Libya and Ethiopia would have had a choice because it wasn’t until after World War II (1939-1945) that Italy finally standardized, ending the era of localities setting their own rules.  Some countries have made the swap (mostly from left to right) but it’s difficult (apparently a decade-long increase in the accident rate is factored in by the planners) and in some cases it proved impossible.  When India conducted a post-Raj trial they found the drivers of cars & trucks adapted well but the beasts which pulled the carts then a significant proportion of traffic volumes just couldn’t be persuaded to change.

Domestic electricity is another patchwork.  Most of the planet is supplied with 220-240 volt feeds (there was once the odd outlier with 250v and while their light globes burned brighter, they didn’t last as long) while other run at 110-120v.  Electricity networks of course started locally and just spread so the reason for the differences are understandable and the costs & disruption which would be caused by converting one to another means it’ll probably never happen anywhere although there is a move, undertaken in many (220-240) jurisdictions to standardize on 230v.  What is a bit of a nuisance though is the proliferation of connection types in the 220-240v world, forcing travellers either to travel with the relevant adaptor or rely on being able to buy one when they arrive.  For those who go many places, there are some thoughtfully designed, multi-prong adaptors, the most intriguing of which use slides so the correct metal can be chosen to extend.  Again, because the installed base of wall-plugs decades ago reached the point where a change-over would be prohibitively expensive, it something the world is stuck with.

Standardized wind: The Beaufort wind force scale.

The Beaufort wind force scale was devised because the British Admiralty was accumulating much data about prevailing weather conditions at spots around the planet where the Royal Navy sailed and it was noticed there was some variation in way different observers would describe the wind conditions.  In the age of sail, wind strength frequency and direction was critical to commerce and warfare and indeed survival so the navy needed to information to be as accurate an consistent as possible but in the pre-electronic age the data came from human observation, even mechanical devices not usually in use.  What Captain Beaufort noticed was that a sailor brought up in a blustery place like the Scottish highlands was apt to understate the strength of winds while those from calmer places were more impressed by even a moderate breeze.  Accordingly, he developed a scale which was refined until formally adopted by the Admiralty after he’d been appointed Hydrographer of the Navy.  The initial draft reflected the functional purpose, the lowest rating describing the sort of gentle zephyr which was just enough to enable a captain to manoeuvre while the highest was of the gale-force winds which would shred the sails.  As sails gave way to steam, the scale was further refined by referencing the effect of wind upon the sea rather than sails and it was adopted also by those working in shore-based meteorological stations.  In recent years, categories up to 17 have been added to describe the phenomena described variously as hurricanes, typhoons & cyclones.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) in a breeze estimated at 4-5 on the Beaufort wind force scale (left).  There is product which substantially can withstand winds of such force but they do produce an unnatural look.  Lindsay Lohan (right) illustrates the "wind-blown" look which is popular in fashion photography although it's not always done with wind machines (big fans), strategically-placed tape and cardboard often used to get the effect.  This one would be around 6 on the scale. 

Although remembered for the scale which bears his name, Beaufort also made a great contribution to the Admiralty’s charts, quite a task given that the only way to determine depth was laboriously to take soundings which were then mapped onto charts compiled from observations of the shoreline and astronomical observations determining longitude and latitude.  Sir Francis retired from the Navy as a Rear Admiral after also developing the Beaufort Cipher for coded communication which he used for some of his private correspondence and he had a sister name Frances which must have sometimes been confusing but after his death when his letters were decoded, the scandalous nature of his relationship with his sister Henrietta (1778-1865) was revealed.  In 1819, Henrietta published Dialogues on Botany for the Use of Young Persons, an introductory text for young readers interested in plant biology.

Bristol Beaufort of RAF 217 Squadron out of Malta, 1942.

The Bristol Beaufort was a twin-engined, four-seat torpedo and general reconnaissance bomber which entered service late in 1939, allocated initially to Royal Air Force (RAF) Costal Command to replace the Blackburn Botha which had proved unsatisfactory although the original specification had suggested it would be used as a torpedo bomber in the Far East.  Developed from the smaller, lighter and less powerful Blenheim the Beaufort was a solid rather than an outstanding performer and but it served as the RAF’s primary torpedo bomber until 1943 and was also deployed as a ground bomber to plug the UK’s technology gap until newer, more capable designs entered production.  More successful was the use in the Pacific theatre, some 700 Beauforts produced in Australian factories which proved adaptable in sea and land operations, some even converted as high-speed, light transport freighters.  The Beaufort’s greatest legacy however was when its wings, tail and rear fuselage were combined with more powerful engines and a revised forward section to produce the two seat Beaufighter, one of the war’s outstanding heavy strike-fighters.  Heavily armed with various combinations of cannons, machine guns and later rockets, it was one of the most effective anti-shipping weapons; offering reliability, high speed and the relative quiet of its sleeve valve radial engines, it proved lethal against U-boats (the German submarines).  Robust and easy to maintain even in adverse environments, in a variety of roles, examples remained in RAF service until 1960.