HMS Africa's isolated approach at Trafalgar

Could HMS Africa have turned Trafalgar into a third line-versus-line action?

Africa's lone 64-gun approach was bold enough to alarm the Franco-Spanish fleet, which briefly had to consider that a third British column might be arriving.

Africa was too small and isolated to form a line by herself, but her approach mattered because the enemy could not immediately know British intentions. The sight of a lone ship of the line advancing from another direction raised the possibility of a third column. The moment demonstrates how incomplete information can give even one straggler a tactical effect beyond its firepower.