Missing your Tack!

[Tradewinds Ted]

This would be a distinction without a difference. I agree that tacking was an inherently difficult proposition. Success or failure would be more a factor in crew quality and a number of other factors. The "falling off" is accounted for in the cards as they are. Even the Spanish could perform a tack, although they could be missed due to unusual wind shift, crew quality, battle damage, or bad seamanship on the part of the Sailing Master, Captain etc.

That is exactly what this variant is intended to model more closely. Even with this variant tacking is ordinarily still possible for every ship, but now wind shifts, battle damage, poor crew quality, and poor seamanship could all make it more difficult, and result in sometimes missing a tack, all without adding any additional randomizer.
- The effects of wind shifts are pretty obvious and are outlined above.
- Battle damage has an effect because the maneuver that begins the tack might not provide enough of a change in the desired direction to allow the tack to complete successfully.
- Even crew quality is taken into account if you are playing with optional "untrained crew" rules, and the action that is missed is the adjustment of sail state for the last movement prior to being taken aback, and it might not be possible to have enough of an initial change in direction.
- Poor seamanship is reflected if the maneuver that begins the tack is poorly planned and does not provide enough of a change in direction, particularly if a straight (veer 5) move was planned after that.