I'm looking for some information for my fantasy semi-historical game and have not been able to find a few things online.  I'm posting this in the hope that someone here with a background in history will be able to point me to some resources.

One mode of play for the game is "Pirates of the Caribbean," or fantasy Traveller if you'd rather think of it that way, and I need some fairly detailed ship rules to support that.  I've tried to keep the rest of the game as realistic as possible, except of course for the fantasy elements, because I believe that aligning game world mechanics with the players' real life experience provides the easiest, most engaging experience.  So I'm looking for historical information on ship handling characteristics.  I don't need a huge amount of data – a few examples will let me extrapolate the rest, and I already have one really good data point from sailing 26' boats out of Ventura harbor when I lived in the area.

So specifically I'm looking at 1700's sailing ships operating in the Caribbean, and am looking for how fast they turn or turning radius, time to get up to speed, time to slow to a stop, speed lost whilst turning, and time to reset the rigging for various maneuvers.  I'm hoping to find actual historical data.  Anything from an RPG or video game is likely to be just made up, which I'll do as well if I can't find references.  Also, I know that the answer to most of those questions depend a lot on crew skill and conditions, but if I can get a few examples I can at least find the right ballpark.

I've already found a lot of information on top speed, crew, cargo, armament, speed vs wind direction, and minutia of handling the sails.

Any info or resources provided will be much appreciated.


And if anyone else is interested in the details of historical sailing, I recommend

Seamanship in the Age of Sail by John Harland
The Capability of Sailing Warships, Windward Performance by Sam Willis
The Capability of Sailing Warships, Manoeuvrability by Sam Willis

ICE's Run Out The Guns is a fantastic resource for pirate campaigns.  It's got lots of ship information and a lovely map of the Caribean.  But the real gems are the essays on crew roles and society.  One thing it lacked was a price list for cargos, bales of cotton and coffee should be priced somewhere and aren't.  We ran a good little campaign of it but one player got mad when they finally managed to obtain a Frigate (the best pirate ship) but it was named The Gay Troubadour.

I don't know the answers to those questions, but if you want your sailing ships to be accurate (and interesting), you should bear in mind the following:

1) Speed is relative to the water (which may have currents), not the land. That can be interesting in a littoral setting.

2) The acceleration and maximum speed from the sails is dependent on wind speed and direction. It is possible to make way slowly into the wind by tacking, but it's nothing like riding before the wind.

I would remember that pirate ships actually tend to be small, fast, and maneuverable. 

I have a super basic 2D simulator for sailing ships on my PC with an emphasis on physics and realism.

HMS Surprise simulator

A two masted brig takes about two minutes to go from a starboard reach to jib over to a port reach.  FYI, a "reach" is sailing towards the wind at an angle, about 50 degrees, maybe as good as 45 degrees. 

I'll also note that about 1:30 of that 2 minutes is spent going backwards with the sails pressed into the masts with the wind on the front side, called "backing the sails." 

A bigger three masted ship is about 3 or 4 minutes to jib over, and can only get about 60 degrees off the eye of the wind. 

Quote from: David Johansen on August 28, 2024, 12:54:11 PMICE's Run Out The Guns is a fantastic resource for pirate campaigns.  It's got lots of ship information and a lovely map of the Caribean.  But the real gems are the essays on crew roles and society.  One thing it lacked was a price list for cargos, bales of cotton and coffee should be priced somewhere and aren't.  We ran a good little campaign of it but one player got mad when they finally managed to obtain a Frigate (the best pirate ship) but it was named The Gay Troubadour.

That sound awesome ... but the best price I saw was $70.  No PDFs available.  :-(

Quote from: Krazz on August 28, 2024, 02:36:53 PMI don't know the answers to those questions, but if you want your sailing ships to be accurate (and interesting), you should bear in mind the following:

1) Speed is relative to the water (which may have currents), not the land. That can be interesting in a littoral setting.

It gets even funkier if you have to go up a river.  One of the articles I cited claimed that Man'OWars went up rivers.  Amazing if true.  I'd be hesitant to do that even in the little boats I've sailed unless the winds are perfect or it's the Amazon.

Quote from: Krazz on August 28, 2024, 02:36:53 PM2) The acceleration and maximum speed from the sails is dependent on wind speed and direction. It is possible to make way slowly into the wind by tacking, but it's nothing like riding before the wind.

Modern sailboat manufacturers provide polar plots showing possible speed at various angles into and out of the wind.  Some of them show headway at a mere 15 degrees to the wind, but it's not much and I bet it takes a lot of skill.  I was able to adapt those diagrams to my game in a very simplified form.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 28, 2024, 06:57:16 PMI would remember that pirate ships actually tend to be small, fast, and maneuverable. 

Yep.  The ship I'm statting out as I write the rules is based on Captain Kidd's Adventure Galley.  Seems awfully small to me even considering the era.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 28, 2024, 06:57:16 PMI have a super basic 2D simulator for sailing ships on my PC with an emphasis on physics and realism.

HMS Surprise simulator

Thank you!  As someone who writes simulations professionally, I can see that that's some pretty impressive work.  I can't imagine going to that much trouble without getting pay or a grade for it.  Was it a capstone project for an engineering degree?  Also, did you need to develop the dynamics from scratch, or did you have a source for that.  And were you able to proof it out against a real ship or two?

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 28, 2024, 06:57:16 PMA two masted brig takes about two minutes to go from a starboard reach to jib over to a port reach.  FYI, a "reach" is sailing towards the wind at an angle, about 50 degrees, maybe as good as 45 degrees. 

I'll also note that about 1:30 of that 2 minutes is spent going backwards with the sails pressed into the masts with the wind on the front side, called "backing the sails." 

A bigger three masted ship is about 3 or 4 minutes to jib over, and can only get about 60 degrees off the eye of the wind. 

That sounds right.  One historical account I found referenced a French ship tacking in 160 seconds, which from context was an achievement.  I also found a video of The Star of India, which is currently operational, tacking over.  Sadly the video wasn't continuous so I couldn't time it.  It was a bit of a surprise for me.  I learned to tack sailboats with the rudder - basically I just need to get across the wind before I totally lose momentum.  The Star of India essentially tacked in place by loosing the front sails so the back sails pushed the bow into the wind, then tightening the front and loosing the back at the right time so the wind would pull the ship all the way over.  It required some fairly impressive judgement and coordination on the part of the captain and crew.

You want ships from the 1600s, not the 1700s (for historical accuracy, but don't let that stop you having fun.).  Nearly all the stories and figures that are generally known about were from the late 1600.  By 1720, buccaneering was all but suppressed. The Golden Age of Piracy actually ended before the era of The Golden Age of Sail.  Almost everything we see in pirate movies is anachronistic.  The Queen Anne's Revenge was only 200 tons; very large for a pirate ship but tiny compared to a late 1700s war ship.

From the early 1600s to the late 1700s, ship sizes grew dramatically.  Sailing ships we have today that remain are mostly from the late 1700s on.  Ships like the HMS Victory(2162t), HMS Warrior(9284t), USS Constellation(1400t), Star of India(1197t), Cutty Sark(920t), etc. dwarf anything that was on the water when buccaneers were a thing but the British Naval ships chasing them would have been newer and larger than what pirates would have had. 

The vast majority of pirates used repurposed fishing vessels that didn't exceed 40'.  In the latter GAoP, the vast majority of pirate ships still didn't exceed 100'.

So on to the point of handling characteristics of pirate vessels, it was all over the map.  Hull shape plays a lot into how fast and how maneuverable a vessel can be.  Rigging will determine the amount of air a vessel can utilize and the attack angles it can handle but it's the hull that actually utilizes it.  While they certainly had some understanding of the hydrodynamic principles at play, they didn't have them dialed in.  Therefore, it wasn't unusual to see a sailing skiff that was sluggish a the wheel but would run 20 knots in light wind or just the opposite.  It frustrated ship builders when they'd build two vessels that were identical and one would be light and fast and the other was a water logged pig just because of some minor imperfection in the wood used in the keel that they didn't even notice.  There were Man O' War of the time that could run 28kt and turn on a dime while there were attempts to build racing boats that couldn't do 12kt.

Quote from: Mishihari on August 29, 2024, 01:45:10 AM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 28, 2024, 06:57:16 PMI would remember that pirate ships actually tend to be small, fast, and maneuverable. 

Yep.  The ship I'm statting out as I write the rules is based on Captain Kidd's Adventure Galley.  Seems awfully small to me even considering the era.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 28, 2024, 06:57:16 PMI have a super basic 2D simulator for sailing ships on my PC with an emphasis on physics and realism.

HMS Surprise simulator

Thank you!  As someone who writes simulations professionally, I can see that that's some pretty impressive work.  I can't imagine going to that much trouble without getting pay or a grade for it.  Was it a capstone project for an engineering degree?  Also, did you need to develop the dynamics from scratch, or did you have a source for that.  And were you able to proof it out against a real ship or two?

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 28, 2024, 06:57:16 PMA two masted brig takes about two minutes to go from a starboard reach to jib over to a port reach.  FYI, a "reach" is sailing towards the wind at an angle, about 50 degrees, maybe as good as 45 degrees. 

I'll also note that about 1:30 of that 2 minutes is spent going backwards with the sails pressed into the masts with the wind on the front side, called "backing the sails." 

A bigger three masted ship is about 3 or 4 minutes to jib over, and can only get about 60 degrees off the eye of the wind. 

That sounds right.  One historical account I found referenced a French ship tacking in 160 seconds, which from context was an achievement.  I also found a video of The Star of India, which is currently operational, tacking over.  Sadly the video wasn't continuous so I couldn't time it.  It was a bit of a surprise for me.  I learned to tack sailboats with the rudder - basically I just need to get across the wind before I totally lose momentum.  The Star of India essentially tacked in place by loosing the front sails so the back sails pushed the bow into the wind, then tightening the front and loosing the back at the right time so the wind would pull the ship all the way over.  It required some fairly impressive judgement and coordination on the part of the captain and crew.

I didn't write that software.  I just know about and play around with it. 

Like I said, it's a few minutes to turn thru the eye of the wind.

The first thing you do is turn the rudder to turn towards the wind, while simultaneously you release the sheet ropes to the jib sails on the very front of the ship, and roatate all of the sails on the front mast to be edge on to the wind. You lose thrust, but the point is to turn, not go fast. After about 30 seconds the ship stops and starts going backwards, so you reverse your rudder, just like you would if you were backing up in your car. 

Once the ship is across the eye of the wind you tighten up the jib sail so it starts catching wind, helping the ship turn now.  Then, once the front mast sails start getting wind from behind again, you are there.  Rotate the middle and rear sails to the opposite side and let out some jib sail to about 18 degrees on HMS Surprise sim 3-masted ship, all other sails turned to the maximum, and rudder to zero.  You can then steer the ship just using the jib sail at the front.

I prefer the 3-masted ship as it practically steers itself, while the 2-masted brig needs constant supervision to keep it going straight. 

For some reason this all makes me think of the old PC game "Ancient Art of War At Sea"

Just a quick update:  I've been working on the system for this and even a simplified representation is going to be middling-crunchy, which goes against my "as simple as possible" philosophy for this project.  I think I'm going to be breaking it into a simple, highly abstracted pass/fail check systems and a seawar minigame, so the folks playing the game can do it whichever way makes sense for them.

Anyone had a glance at Dont Give Up the Ship by Arneson, Gygax and Carr?

So, another update.  I dug into the source code and was surprised at how sophisticated it was.  I write simulations professionally and I was impressed.  It should give realistic results as long as the parameters were right.  I emailed the author of the sim and he was kind enough to reply.  The parameters were based on tables from the Jubilee Trainings Association in England which operated several period ships.  Short version, this is about as realistic as I can expect to find.

I planned an extensive set of tests to get a framework for ship performance.  Unfortunately I wasn't good enough at the sim to run most of the tests and the auto helmsman and sail handlers are only good for simple, downwind sailing.  Nonetheless I was able to get most of what I needed.  Here are some of the high points

1)   With the sails down, the ships drifted to minimum speed (not stopped because of wind on the hull) in about a minute.
2)   When sails are lifted the ships reached 90% of maximum speed in about 5 seconds
3)   The turn rate is proportional to wind speed.  It varies little with heading relative to the wind, assuming the sails are handled properly.

I'd be very interested if my results jibe with the experience of anyone else who's run the sim.

In game mechanics terms, I decided to use 12 "points" to a compass rose circle rather than the traditional 16, since this aligns with hex maps.  In the 3 second combat turns in my game I now have a few data points.
   The frigate can turn one point every 14 turns with 15 knots of wind
   The frigate can turn one point every 8 turns with 25 knots of wind
   The brig can turn one point every 21 turns with 15 knots of wind
The brig can turn one point every 13 turns with 25 knots of wind

And that gives me the ball park for the range.  I can just estimate ship stats from here and not be too far off.  I'll need a different time scale for noncombat movement, but that's pretty straightforward.  So, progress

Quote from: Mishihari on September 13, 2024, 04:48:15 AMSo, another update.  I dug into the source code and was surprised at how sophisticated it was.  I write simulations professionally and I was impressed.  It should give realistic results as long as the parameters were right.  I emailed the author of the sim and he was kind enough to reply.  The parameters were based on tables from the Jubilee Trainings Association in England which operated several period ships.  Short version, this is about as realistic as I can expect to find.

I planned an extensive set of tests to get a framework for ship performance.  Unfortunately I wasn't good enough at the sim to run most of the tests and the auto helmsman and sail handlers are only good for simple, downwind sailing.  Nonetheless I was able to get most of what I needed.  Here are some of the high points

1)    With the sails down, the ships drifted to minimum speed (not stopped because of wind on the hull) in about a minute.
2)    When sails are lifted the ships reached 90% of maximum speed in about 5 seconds
3)    The turn rate is proportional to wind speed.  It varies little with heading relative to the wind, assuming the sails are handled properly.

I'd be very interested if my results jibe with the experience of anyone else who's run the sim.

In game mechanics terms, I decided to use 12 "points" to a compass rose circle rather than the traditional 16, since this aligns with hex maps.  In the 3 second combat turns in my game I now have a few data points.
    The frigate can turn one point every 14 turns with 15 knots of wind
    The frigate can turn one point every 8 turns with 25 knots of wind
    The brig can turn one point every 21 turns with 15 knots of wind
The brig can turn one point every 13 turns with 25 knots of wind

And that gives me the ball park for the range.  I can just estimate ship stats from here and not be too far off.  I'll need a different time scale for noncombat movement, but that's pretty straightforward.  So, progress

Man, you're going above and beyond on this. 

Glad I could help by letting you know the sim existed. 

Most sailing sims are for little, fiberglass, personal yachts that people buy for cruising. This is the only sim I've found for classic three-masted ships from the age of sail.

From playing with it I can infer a few things.  Sails can be divided between the front mast and bowsprit, vs main and aft masts.  The second thing is that really there are only four sail settings.  Max thrust (edge of the sail pointed halfway between the bow and the wind), no thrust (edge of the sail pointed straight at the wind) so that end of the ship turns into the wind, max drag with the sail 90 degrees to the wind and pulling that end of the ship downwind, and no sail at all, either by "brailling" it up (ropes that pull the sail onto the mast or yardarm in a temporary & ugly bundle), or my putting the sail away.

Steering is as much about the very front and very rear sails, which can be set to an inefficient angle for thrust, but are set that way so the ship doesn't try to constantly turn.

One control I wish the sim had was for linking the mainmast and mizzenmast angles.  It's rare that one is turned and the other is not.  Going hove-to is one situation where you do set just the mainmast to be backed while the mizzenmast and foremast are still both trying to push forward.  Instead, you stop and drift downwind, but nobody has to go up and bring in the sails to stop.  You can reset the mainmast and go almost immediately.

Are you going to use a grid for ship combat? 

Hex or square?

One thing to remember is that ships cannot sail directly into the wind.  So determining wind direction before a ship encounter is paramount. 

Ships can row into the wind but not for very long, and not at great speed. 

The Adventure Galley was capable of being rowed. 

One game I like to reference for ship combat is Sid Meier's Pirates.  Both the 1987, and the 2004 versions.  The instruction booklets are available for free online and can give you an idea of the various types of ships that you might see in the Caribbean, ans well as their characteristics, although it is from the 1600's and not the 1700's. 


Good luck!