For the last 5 days, it's been pretty clear that was the path of the storm -- only a question of when it was going to clear out.

They can't have continued that path without being in the worst quadrant? Even if they thought that the storm wouldn't move -- or would have cleared out earlier -- there was no reason to "walk in front of the bull in the coral".

To me, it seems clear that someone driving or directing that ship consciously decided to go into or through that storm.