Illegal maneuvers planned

In an advanced game, what happens if a player plans a maneuver only to take rudder damage so that later, when it is revealed, it's illegal. He can't just sit there because then planning an illegal maneuver is a free way to stop a ship in its tracks (The world's most effective anchor). It came up in a game I was playing with a friend of mine and I scoured the rulebook and couldn't find what to do. We just sort of moved past it by reducing the difference in burden to what would have been legal and then swapping out. So basically his burden was originally 5 and he had manuevers planned with numbers 8 then 3. After executing maneuver 8 he took a rudder hit so on his next turn when the 3 came up the ruling was that he had to do a 4 instead (basically he had to bring it up to the first "legal" number). But I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to be done.

I think you called it right, but I'll let those in higher authority give you the answer.

I know in solo games when maneuver cards are selected by the AI which don't exist within a ships specific deck you use the next closest match for the attempted maneuver. Not the exact same thing but it follows a similar logic.

You use the same protocol as for being in irons.

So if you plan a maneuver that violates your veer you are taken aback? Seems a little weird.

The ship has to do a straight instead (veer value 5), as far as I remember.

Probably right there Sven.
I will amend my rules as per your advice.
Rob.

Yes, Sven is correct. It says on page 24 of the rulebook under 'Veer', "If an illegal maneuver is revealed replace it with a straight maneuver". Checking the Veer following rudder damage (or repair) is mentioned on page 33 but it does not explicitly refer back to page 24. Perhaps this could be included in any future edition of the rules.

Good call Sven and David. Not come across this before but now I know the answer ahead. Cheers.

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Originally Posted by Chiron0224

So if you plan a maneuver that violates your veer you are taken aback? Seems a little weird.

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You are not taken aback, but you have to replace the maneuver card with a different legal maneuver card, as in being taken aback. It's the same mechanic. But it's not accurate. If you remove a rudder from a sailing ship, it will always be turned downwind from the force of the wind acting on the sails. It doesn't matter what kind of rig you have. You cannot steer a straight course without a rudder unless you are running before the wind. Also, a damaged rudder rarely gets damaged to where the rudder is aligned fore and aft and you simply keep sailing on the same tack. If your rudder becomes damaged, it usually is bent, twisted, or broken at an angle you don't want. You pretty much have to stop what you are doing and fix the rudder before anything else. There are plenty of naval actions where this is shown. One solution is to fix a temporary rudder and try to steer the ship that way until you can lay up and reship a new rudder. So, in effect, you actually are "in irons" if you lose your rudder. Once rudder control is lost, you usually have to douse your sails until the rudder is replaced or repaired so that the ship isn't blown all over the place by the wind. What never happens is that you just keep going the same speed and direction you were going when the damage occurred.

So Ares need to introdue a new rule. How would you word it, Kenneth, please?

I think Ken's logic is pretty sound. I will check the rules on a couple of things an offer a possible mechanic suggestion.

The straight when an illegal move is shown is due to a player choosing an illegal move, not as the result of damage. These are two separate scenarios.

With WoG, a player, regardless of damage, plays whatever cards have been pre-planned, and then responds to damage that affects maneuvers.

Would something like the following make sense:

1. On the move immediately following the rudder damage, use the planned maneuver if legal; if illegal, choose the closest veer-rated legal maneuver. (This takes into consideration momentum.)
2. Until the rudder is repaired, if the ship is:

• Running: play the fully straight #5 card.
• Reaching: play the side-slip #5 card in the downwind direction.
• Beating: if wind is low or medium strength, play the #4 or #6 card in the downwind direction; if wind strength is high, play the #3 or #7 card in the downwind direction.
• Taken Aback: play the Taken Aback card in the downwind direction.

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Originally Posted by 7eat51

Would something like the following make sense:

1. On the move immediately following the rudder damage, use the planned maneuver if legal; if illegal, choose the closest veer-rated legal maneuver. (This takes into consideration momentum.)
2. Until the rudder is repaired, if the ship is:

• Running: play the fully straight #5 card.
• Reaching: play the side-slip #5 card in the downwind direction.
• Beating: if wind is low or medium strength, play the #4 or #6 card in the downwind direction; if wind strength is high, play the #3 or #7 card in the downwind direction.
• Taken Aback: play the Taken Aback card in the downwind direction.

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That sounds pretty good, actually. The way I would put it would be, if you sustain rudder damage you have to announce that you are dousing sail immediately in order to stay on the same course. If you are under full battle sails and you do not douse your sail, you are going to head downwind in a hurry. If you are French, and off your home coast, the wind is blowing towards the home port, you can actually sail the ship home. If you are British and the wind is blowing you towards the french coast, you are probably going to want to douse sail immediately. You can sail any ship without a rudder. As a matter of fact, you can turn a square rigged ship into the wind without a rudder simply by dousing all sail while using the spanker only. Then you come to a stop. In modern sailboats with big keels sticking down in the water, you can not only steer the ship without the rudder, but that's the only way you are going to go fast enough to beat the other ships in a race. Every time you use your rudder in yacht racing, it increases drag and slows your ship down. So, with the keel keeping the ship going straight, you can actually tack into the wind without the rudder. Square riggers are a different animal altogether. What limits them is not the square sails, but rather the ratlines limiting the travel of the yards.
If I had a damaged rudder on a squarerigger, I think I would just use the jib and stay sails fore and aft plus the spanker to try to keep the ship going in the right direction. What you would never want to do is get anywhere near the shore. Without a rudder, you will be blown onto the rocks, guaranteed, no matter how good a sailor you are.

There are three main helm settings, weather helm, centered helm, and lee helm. Regardless of the type of boat you are sailing in, you always want to have a weather helm. That is, you want the rudder to point to the side the wind is coming from, as if you want to turn into that wind. The force of the wind on the sails keeps the ship from actually turning into the wind and the ship goes straight. This gives you total control over where the ship is going. It's never a good idea to have a lee helm or centered helm unless you are turning downwind. With those two positions, the rudder is not doing anything and the sails are doing 100% of the work.

As a point of historic interest, the mizzen sails on a square rigger were invented specifically to help steer the ship. It quickly evolved from a lateen sail to a spanker sail that actually extends beyond the stern specifically for that purpose.

Re-reading my last post has got me thinking that I am going to confuse a lot of people. On a modern yacht, if you just let go of the tiller, the ship will naturally turn into the wind. That is what most sailors call a "weather helm". It's like having a dead man switch, if nobody is manning the helm, the ship turns into the wind and comes to a halt. This is because a modern yacht, with a single mast and a giant fin keel heels over and makes the hull "footprint" larger on one side than on the other which makes it want to turn to the side with the smaller footprint. Square riggers are different. Their hull shapes are pretty much the same no matter how much you heel the ship over. There is no fin keel, so you can barely heel over anyway. The two factors affecting which direction the rudder goes, are the center of resistance and the center of effort. Without going into too much detail, you may notice that the mainmast on your models are well aft of the center of the ship. That's because the center of resistance is well forward of the center of the ship. The idea is to "balance" the ship so that it has very little of either type of helm. You are not cranking hard on the rudder, you are only moving it a few degrees. What happens when you just let go of a square rigger helm is that it gets blown down wind. Because the ship is "balanced" the force of the wind on the sails greatly overcomes the resistance of the hull and will push the ship sideways and turn it downwind. That's if no other damage is incurred. Usually, if your rudder is gone, that's the least of your problems.

A very detailed analysis Ken, and a great help in my understanding of just how a ship operates. It has filled in a lot of reasons for things I had noticed, such as the mainmast being so far back.
I had assumed that loss of steering was usually due to the wheel or its cables being destroyed. I now see that the sails settings are far more important than the helm.
Thanks.
Rob.

It seems that every sailor has a different take on how sailing ships operate. It's based on actual experience sailing, and however much education you can absorb. There are plenty of guys around to say that I'm dead wrong about it, but, in my experience, that's the way ships sail. Sail dynamics is such a weird science that I was stunned when I heard that the fixed wing trimaran Oracle could actually sail faster than the wind. At first look, it doesn't seem possible.

The reason you want about 3 degrees weather helm (helm in this instance is which way the bow is pointing, into the wind or away from the wind) is so that you can feel the tiller. If a boat is perfectly balanced, you can't feel any pressure on the tiller at all, so it is natural to turn the bow slightly to winward so that you get feedback from the tiller. This also helps reduce leeway (the tendency for a ship to be blown sideways downwind). With feedback from the tiller, you can tell if your sails are set correctly. It's quite easy to get the "feel" of a ship, all you have to do is sail any sailboat once, fool around with letting sails out and in, how it feels on the tiller, and you will quickly get the idea. On a square rigger, neither the captain nor the helmsman can feel the rudder. It has to be geared low enough for one person to operate the wheel. If the captain wants the helmsman to set a course, he shouts out the compass number, say, "120 degrees", and the quartermaster tells the helmsman what to do. The actual names and who gets orders from whom changes with every ship. Getting a large three masted square rigger to stay on course, much less change course, is a lot harder than it looks which is why the helmsman of a large square rigger needs so much help to simply steer the ship. Break the rudder on a square rigger, and your ability to maintain course is completely gone.

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Originally Posted by Bligh

A very detailed analysis Ken, and a great help in my understanding of just how a ship operates. It has filled in a lot of reasons for things I had noticed, such as the mainmast being so far back.
I had assumed that loss of steering was usually due to the wheel or its cables being destroyed. I now see that the sails settings are far more important than the helm.
Thanks.
Rob.

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The center of effort in a mainsail is usually somewhere in the middle of the sail. On a fore and aft rigged sailboat, that point, depending on how big your mainsail is, can be a dozen feet behind where the mast is. So, you move the mast forward to get the center of effort to move closer to the center of the ship. On a square rigged mainmast, the sail billows out in front of the mast, so the center of effort is forward of the mast. So, you move the mainmast back towards the stern to get the main sail's center of effort to the same place it would be on a triangular mainsail sail whose center of effort is aft of the mast.

By the bye, You can substitute the phrase, "center of the ship" with the phrase, "Center of Lateral Resistance, or CLR. On most ships, it's the middle of the ship. The CLR is the point about which the ship pivots. If you push the bow sideways, the stern moves in the opposite direction. If you have a wider or heavier stern than the bow, that pivot point is closer to the stern, if you have wider or heavier bow than the stern, that point is closer to the bow. But, as a general rule The CLR is in the middle of the ship. If the Center of effort of the mainsail is aft of the CLR, the ship will have a tendency to turn into the wind if you let go of the tiller. It will have what is called a "natural weather helm". If the center of effort is forward of the CLR, the ship will have a tendency to turn downwind if you let go of the rudder or a natural lee helm. What happens on a square rigger with multiple masts, is that you have to figure the center of effort of each sail, each sail's position, and combine it all into one giant cluster**k of a geometry problem to determine where the center of effort actually is given a certain sail setting. If you use only the mizzen top royal, the center of effort is way, way aft of the CLR, and so your boat is going to quickly turn into the wind. If you use only your jib sail, your center of effort is way, way forward of the CLR and your are going to quickly turn downwind. If you set every sail you have and let go of the tiller, it's anybody's guess which way the ship will turn. But it will turn one way or the other, because naturally balanced boats, turning neither windward or leeward, are almost impossible to construct and would be badly unsettled boats anyway.

Sorry to blather on so long about it.

Bravo!

Since your very informative instruction Ken, I have managed to read "Seamanship in the age of sail" which has helped to cement your information in my mind. I probably now hold about 25% of what was in the book in my memory, but it is a great deal more than when I first started reading your information, so thank you very much Ken.
Rob.