Captain Nicholas Marchand, lowered the eyeglass and turned to his first Lt , Lieutenant Badoc. “ It is a Merchant man, I wonder why he has stopped?”
For the past few days the lookout had reported a sail behind them, at first he thought it may have been a Roast Beef ship, trailing him, but the ship did not gain and stayed behind, last night he had assembled his officers and decided to investigate.
So once night has fallen he gave the orders to face about, and here in the early morning light they could see it was not an Englishman but a Merchantman flying French colours, which was not moving. Why not?
“ Captain, there is another ship alongside her” retorted Lt Badoc.
Marchand raised the eyeglass again, Badoc was right another ship was alongside the Merchant and boats could be seen in the water, the wind changed direction and now the seconds ships colours were revealed, it was a Don.
“Lt Badoc, man the crew to stations and prepare for action, lets show the Dons they cannot just take what is not theirs eh mon ami ! “
The Drums beat action stations and the crew ran to their positions, guns loaded and Marines moving forward and into the fighting tops, Marchand mused, “ So the Dons had changed sides, that will upset the Emperor, but that will give the pesky Roast Beefs more ships and make movement more difficult,”
Marchand raised his voice and called out to the crew as they busily got ready “Men there is a Spanish Frigate trying to stop one of our Merchantmen from its lawful business, that is nothing but Piracy, our allies seem to have forgotten who are their betters, lets teach these Dons that the Roast Beefs do not control all the seas all of the time, to action my friends”.
Turn 1 the ships initial positions
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...6&d=1453655787
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...7&d=1453655802
Turn 2 The Dryade into the wind turns to Starboard, and moves forward.
Turn 3 The Spanish Frigate Sirena move to intercept the Dryade, while the Dryade turns to Port once more into the wind
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...8&d=1453655816
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...9&d=1453655855
Turn 4
The Frigate move towards each other
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...0&d=1453655872
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...1&d=1453655889
Turn 5
Dryade sailing into the wind turns sharp Starboard while Sirena moves forward, looking to get behind Dryade. The Merchantman with Prize crew moves off.
Unfortunately with the winds help Sirena presents Dryade with a Bow Rake
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...3&d=1453655952
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...4&d=1453655971
Sirena is hit badly and loses a mast
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...5&d=1453655986
Turn 6, 7 & 8
Dryade turns to Starboard and heads towards the Merchant and Sirena, Sirena turns erratically to Starboard, the crew frantically trying to rig a Jury mast to bring themselves back under control.
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...7&d=1453656039
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...9&d=1453656078
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...0&d=1453656120
Turn 9 Sirena repairs the mast and moves back towards Dryade, the Merchantman is frantically trying to move away from Dryade, Dryade moves forward to close the gap with the Merchantman.
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...1&d=1453656140
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...2&d=1453656158
Turn 10
Sirena turns to port and lets loose a broadside, while Dryade turns to Port and responds in kind.
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...5&d=1453656239
The Spanish shooting is atrocious
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...4&d=1453656199
Dryade causes a leak and a fire
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...3&d=1453656178
Turn 11, 12,13
Sirena tried to tackle the leak and Fire, the crew losses though restrict this work, and finally strikes
Dryade moves to intercept the Merchantman, which is now moving towards the far horizon and safety, or so they hope
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...6&d=1453656253
Turn 14
Dryade places herself across the Bows of the Merchant man which promptly strikes.
The Bill
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...7&d=1453656268
http://www.sailsofglory.org/attachme...8&d=1453656284
Dyade loss 1 box partial damage, 1 crew box
Sirena loss 5 box of damage, plus 2 from fire and two from water leak, turn 14 in the action phase they would have stopped the fire and pumped one water box, giving 1 box left, plus crew casualties of 3 Box and 3 box as prize crew on Merchantman. Struck colours and captured by Dryade
Merchantman surrendered to Dryade
With thanks to SWMBO for drawing the chits, rules used were Powder Monkey from the site
Apologies for a couple of the pics, a new camera and just getting used to it.
