Mister Mojo Risin' . . .

 It's amazing what a little time away can do for one's creativity.  I didn't touch a sailing ship from March 17, 2020 to December 15, 2020.  Then, from 12/15/2020 to the time of this post, I completed X of them.  That's how I thought this post was going to go.

Instead, it has become a story about how your mojo can vanish and return.  I was working quickly and had 4 ships under construction, with 3 of them either ready to be, or in the process of being rigged.  Then, I walked in one morning and found a scene of partial despair.  Turns out that our 16-year-old cat had decided to hop up on my painting table during the night.  She hasn't done that in years, so why now?  No idea. 🤬 cat. . . . 

Of course, the most complete ship was the one that took the worst damage.  The Russian 46 gun ship had all the standing rigging and most of the running rigging done.  This turned out to be a good thing, as while the masts were all knocked askew, I was able to pull them back into line using the standing rigging.  The brass ratlines didn't come out anywhere near as well, though.  I wound up having to replace 3 of them, which meant I had to order a new set (they aren't something that I keep an excess stock of lying around).  

Starboard lower mainmast, starboard and port lower mizzen
ratlines. Clearly after being cat-ified.

The other two ships weren't as badly damaged, since they were sheltered behind the Russian.  Only one ratline went missing from them, and that was my fault.  I went to glue it back in place, dropped it, heard it hit the tile floor. . . and it vanished.  So, time to order TWO spare ratline sets.

Once those arrived, I was ready to get started again.  Then, the hospital called.  I've been needing some kidney surgery for a while but it had been delayed several times by COVID.  Now, they were ready for me on the 14th of April.  I'll spare you the gory details, since 1) nobody wants to hear them, and 2) I don't know any of them; I was unconscious for the bloody, cutting parts.  After an overnight stay for observation, I went home the next afternoon.  Oddly enough, the experience left me in NO mood to do any hobby type work.  Who could have guessed? 🤷‍♂️  Also, I realized that operating knives, scissors and glue might not be a good idea while under the influence of painkillers.  After all that drama, I was finally able to get back to work and get the three ships ready for their debut here on the blog.

Now, to be fair, they weren't all done from scratch.  Instead, along with working on my Trafalgar project, I decided to do some more unicorn hunting.  It's one thing for me to say that I finally finished up my Russian 46 gun frigate.  It's another thing altogether when I tell you that ship has been "under construction" since September of 2014!  In that time, the overall collection has gone from 86 ships total to 114 as of April 24.  So, even though he (Russians call their ships "he," not "she") was not the first one finished in this group, mere seniority gives him the first spot in this post.

Yes, I know the headsails are missing. That will be corrected.

The Quarter of Comparison hasn't made an appearance
in a while, so there it is.

Now, this is not his first appearance on the blog.  Back in January 2018 this ship was featured in a post called "Unicorn Hunting" (https://mymodelsailingships.blogspot.com/2018/01/unicorn-hunting.html).  I ended that post with the quote, "However, no matter what their future careers may take them, I'm determined to cut down on the size of the unicorn fleet."  So, just three short years later, here we are! 🙄

Remember, this is how the ship first appeared 
on the blog.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that this ship isn't painted in the usual black/white scheme associated with Russian and American ships for this period.  There is, of course, a reason for that.  As I said in the earlier post, the Russian Navy didn't start painting their ships black and white until about 1802.  One of two of the 46 gun ships might have been around then, but they were all retired by the time the Russo/Ottoman War of 1806 broke out.  So, this ship gets an earlier style scheme.

Next up is a French 74.  She only had a furled sail knocked off during the Great Cat-astrophe (you know the puns here are bad; too late to complain now) so was easy to fix.  Truth be told, I got a little lazy with this ship.  The hull and masts are the same shade of yellow.  I doubt that they were ever this exact a match.  According to Boudriot's The 74-Gun Ship, French lower masts were usually black in home waters, and white in the tropics.  His information is for the the-Revolution navy of 1780.  I suspect the regulations stayed much the same, but the disorder of the Revolution made them much harder to obey.  Well, that's my justification for it anyway.

The last ship of the three is a Spanish 74.  As mentioned in an earlier post, my Spanish navy for Trafalgar is complete.  Instead, she will take the part of Intrepide in the French fleet, as that was a Spanish ship in French service.  I decided to try a slightly different shade of yellow for this ship's hull, and it was successful but not in the way I thought.  Instead of a weathered yellow, what I got was a look that I think is very similar to the varnished sides of the 1770s and earlier.  I don't think it dates the ship too terribly, and it is a different look than unending variations on yellow.

At this point, there are two ships left to do (an 80, and a British 74 Common) and the Combined Fleet will be complete.  That, to be honest, is an odd feeling.  I will still need to build some frigates for them, but all of the ships of the line will be done.  After that, just eight more British ships of the line will complete that fleet.  I owe the British one frigate, instead of the three for the French.  Still, the end is in sight at last!

For sticking this out until the end, here's some bonus content.  At the beginning of the post, I said there were four ships under construction.  Well, here's a sneak peek at number 4:

She's the USS Franklin, one of the 74s that the US Navy launched at the end of the War of 1812.  She's called a 74, but was actually pierced for 87 guns (DANFS says 63 x32 pounder long guns and 24 x 32 LB carronades).  You can do a plausible "what-if" breakout style scenario for her and a companion, but it's more likely that she'll spend most of her life under another flag as needed.

Finally, after reading my gripes about the cat, it seems that she deserves a picture here too.  So, without further ado:

The breaker of ships.

Best. Day. EVER! (In gaming terms, anyway. . . .) Part II

So after the Constitution versus Java fight, Mark decided he wanted to play this game again.  We took a break long enough for me to print some ship sheets, and then went back at each other again.

This time it was just a generic frigate fight.  I picked out two ships at random: A British 36 gun frigate (HMS Santa Margarita) with 12 pound main guns, and a French 38 gun frigate (Proserpine) with 18 pound main guns.  This is where things started getting interesting.  The random dice roll for crew/captain quality gave the French a regular crew, and the British a green crew.  So we have a more experienced French crew with heavier guns, but the British can reload and fire faster (2 phases to reload, opposed to 3 for the French).  So, can quicker firing but lighter guns make up for the differences in weight of metal and crew experience?

The random setup proved to be interesting as well.  By die roll, the British started in the middle of the table.  When setup was done, the French wound up behind them, with both ships starting at Easy Sail.  The weather was moderate, with the wind from the SE at force 4.  With everything ready, the starting situation looked like this:

An English frigate chased by a French one?  Hmmm.

With both ships at Easy Sail, we were both tearing along at 10 movement points each, which is anywhere from 4.5 to 8.8 knots, depending on how the ship is facing into the wind.  I quickly decided that being the chasee was not something I wanted to do.

"No Royal Navy captain is going to let himself be chased by a Frog!"

I started taking in sail, as I didn't want to fly by my opponent and have to claw my way back.  Mark, on the other hand, decided to stay at Easy Sail.  This helped me to decide on my tactics; I would shoot high in hopes of forcing more rigging damage onto him.  That should lead to a mast falling, and then the advantage would be mine.

As we continued to approach each other, I kept taking in sail while he kept pushing ahead.  He decided to turn away from the wind so as to give himself more maneuvering room, and to stay with me.

I got my first broadside off in the red phase of turn 2:

He, however, was able to use his extra speed and get in front of me for a broadside in the white phase:

 Fortunately, it wasn't quite a bow rake (ignore my gun smoke; we just forgot to take it off).  The end of the turn found us like this:

At this point, the maneuvers became quite confusing, with each of us trying to circle around the other.  Part of me wishes I had kept a track chart of the fight along with taking pictures.  I got off another broadside at the beginning of next turn, and caught the Frenchman on fire!

I think this is only the second time I've ever seen a ship catch fire.

I won initiative for the next phases, and made the Frenchman move first, as I wanted to see where this potential hazard would wind up.  It also allowed me to slip in behind him, and deliver an almost stern rake on the target.  Unfortunately, the angle just wasn't quite right for a rake.

Beginning of the phase.

"Pour it into them, boys!"

End of the phase.

I ended the turn by pulling away from the fireship again.  To Mark's great relief, he got the fire put out at the end of this phase. 

The next turn was more jockeying for position, as the Frenchman got in front of me and tried to pull away.

The chase went on for another turn while he tried to make repairs and get some maneuvering room.

After this, he decided to circle back and come towards me.

The maneuvering continued, and we managed to end the turn by getting the two ships fouled together.  I was unable to free us, so both sides prepared boarding parties, just in case.

Apparently I didn't take a picture of the red phase this turn, but nothing happened.

We spent an entire turn fouled together and drifting.  Then the French boarding party in the bow found an opportunity, and stormed aboard.

Apologies for the blurry picture; I was really nervous.

It was three factors of regular French marines versus 3 factors of green British sailors.  I had lost all my marines in the earlier broadsides, but much to my surprise the sailors took out one factor of marines.  He moved some sailors from the waist to his forecastle to reinforce for the next round.  We drifted for another three impulses.  The boarding action was inconclusive this time, but I managed to cut the two ships loose, and his boarding party retreated in the command phase.

I didn't take a picture of the ships in this phase, but it was just
more drifting.  Nothing particularly exciting.

At this point we were up to turn 10, and we rolled for weather changes.  While the weather didn't change, the wind did.  It veered from SE to due E.  This was not a good thing for either of us as you will see from the picture below:

Since we were both in irons, all we could do was drift backwards and turn until we were not facing into the wind.  Proserpine's marines were peppering Santa Margarita with fire this whole time.  Having no marines left, Santa Margarita couldn't respond in any way which was quite galling.  I think it was during this time that my 2nd Lieutenant and one of the Midshipmen were killed.

FINALLY, we can move again!

Once we could move again, it was time to start pounding each other. After the broadsides, Proserpine again turned into Santa Margarita as a prelude to another boarding attempt.

Although I avoided his collision attempt, it meant we were so close to each other that any movement would run the risk of fouling again.  Mark adjusted course slightly, and brought Proserpine alongside, and sure enough, we fouled again.

We exchanged broadsides, and each side readied boarding parties again.

Mark flung every Frenchman he could into his boarding parties, and now numbers began to tell. Santa Margarita had started the game with 8 crew boxes and 3 marine boxes.  Proserpine started the game with 12 crew boxes and 4 marine boxes.  By this point, I had only 5 crew boxes and no marines.  With the ships fouled side by side, he could try and board from fore, mid, and aft.  All I could hope for was that none of his groups had the opportunity to board; if they did, I wouldn't have the manpower to fend them off.  Clearly, this was going to be it!

Needless to say, he tried to board from all three sections.  The boarding attempt from the forward section was repulsed, and he lost a crew factor.  The boarding attempt from the waist was successful, and the fight was on.  Although he didn't cause any casualties to my crew, one factor was forced back (in this case, that means out of the waist section).  With that, my forces were outnumbered 3:1, which meant that they had to retreat.  The center of Santa Margarita was now in French hands.  The aft boarding party from Prosperine didn't find an opportunity to board.  The situation was now dire, as you can see:

I wasn't able to cut the two ships free from each other, so we would be bound together for another turn.  At this point, I struck my colors.  I might have passed a command check, but the lack of crew meant that I would not be able to hold off the French if there were any more boarding opportunities for them.  Even if I were to succeed in regaining control of the waist, it might mean there were not enough men left to man the guns and sail her.

In looking at the damage after the battle, it became clear that, between my fire and the damage from our foulings, Proserpine was so cut up aloft that she could not have chased me had I tried to disengage.  Take a look:

In contrast, Santa Margarita was nowhere near as damaged:

So, there you have it.  Two more British defeats; one completely expected and one that (maybe) could have been avoided.  One thing I learned from this:  It's easy to see why everyone went to 18 pound or heavier guns for their frigates.  The 12's I had were easy to handle, but just didn't hit hard enough in the final analysis.

If you read the earlier post, I said there were three games.  After these two, Mark brought out his Blood & Plunder pirate game and we played an engagement in that.  I managed to win that one.  Maybe I should give up my navy captain's license and become a Hollywood pirate instead!