Earl April, 1814

[Dobbs]

The Chesapeake is a British lake. The Concerned Citizens of Baltimore seize an opportunity to intercept a British post ship off Poole's Island. Two schooners and a brigantine sail down the Patapsco to challenge it...



Later that day...the Chesapeake is still a British lake.

Eric (De Ryuter) and two other friends joined me today for an afternoon of sailing little plastic ships on a table. Eric's schooner led the bold attack against a British 28 gun post ship. We managed a tidy line ahead for our approach to our adversary.

In the first exchange, the schooner following Eric was converted to a single masted sieve. Shortly after that, Eric's schooner was perforated. The post ship went east of Poole's Island and the schooners went west, bringing a lull in the action. My brigantine was pushing hard to come up to the action from the rear of the line.

In the picture above, we've reformed our line north of Poole's Island. I'm now in the middle with Eric in the rear.

North of the island things got hot again, and I scored some significant damage on the British vessel, but we Americans were definitely feeling the imbalance of fighting a genuine warship with three privateers.

The Americans couldn't win, but the British couldn't catch us if we ran away. Maybe next time....