Breaking Off Question

During one of the games I played, I came up with a question about breaking off. What happens when a broken-off ship reaches the table edge? The rules only say: "It will try to head for the nearest table edge if possible." Do you remove the ship, and treat it as having left the battle, or do you just leave it sailing around the edge and hope it rallies?

Thanks!

Very interesting, this seems to be a classic example of something so obvious to wargamers that I forgot to mention it in the rules! I will add to the paragraph that as soon as a ship reaches the table edge, it will leave the battle and count as lost.