Spanish treasure ship escapes French ambush!

Last Sunday, Alan and I played a game of Trafalgar using my [freshly painted]() [French and Spanish]() sailing ships. The scenario we played was one from the book, called 'Pursuit', which is a variation on the 'important ship needs to get off table' theme.

I played the Spanish, with 4 3rd rate ships of the line and one 1st rate, the Principe d'Asturias. I nominated one of the third raters, the Bahama, as the Spanish Treasure ship that needed to get off table (we quickly decided this was the Spanish Treasure Fleet, even if that had last sailed over a decade earlier). Alan played the French with six third raters (so he had the edge in number of cannon) but had to deploy in two seperate groups, as per scenario rules.

What follows is my view of how the battle developed.

As I had the wind advantage (the wind was blowing in the direction I needed to escape -- east, or towards the bottom in the overview photos of the table) and Alan thus had to tack upwind to get to me, I was in a very comfortable position. My first few turns were thus spent sailing towards the spot indicated on the photo below, not needing to decide anything yet. The French sailors, in the mean time, did not same to be able to remember quite what to do when needing to tack, and a full five out of six ships ended up in irons with some mast damage to a few. Good start!

The blue arrows in the photo below represent what I thought Alan would do, if his ships ever got underway.