Duel - 1721 - July 12 - Duel with Ubert

Ships in Action:
HMS Agincourt, Hercules, Sleek variant. Captain Morrow

Hercules, Sleek variant. Captain Ubert

Action Setup:
While on patrol around Matthew Town, Captain Ubert of France called out a challenge to Captain Morrow and it was heartily accepted.

The Action Itself:
To: Lords and Senior Officers of the St. George's Squadron of the White.

From: Roderick Morrow, Captain, HMS Agincourt.

Sirs on the 12th of July this year of 1721, I and the crew of the HMS Agincourt did engage a French frigate of the same design off of Matthew Town in the Antilles. I hereby submit this report of the encounter for your review.

Neither ship had the wind at the beginning of the combat so a short race began where each of us tried to jockey for the gauge but in the end neither really won it. At this point the French frigate was in range of my upper and lower gun decks so I had the lads load bar shot into the cannons, my strategy at the time being to take down his sails. However, the French captain either saw or guessed at my load and turned his ship perpendicular to mine and lowered his sails to battle ready. As a result the two attempted broadsides of bar were very limited in damage to his sails and rigging. I decided at this time since his bow was to me and close to being in the wind to load up bronze and give him a good punch in the nose which we most certainly did. Great damage was caused but not what I am used to seeing from a broadside of bronze even at 400 yards.

At this point my counterpart turned his ship and gave us a full taste of his cannon and their contents which happened to be that damned explosive shot. The Agincourt took heavy but not critical damage to her starboard side but it was my crew where most of the damage was done. Many a lad was down either hurt or worse but the rest continued to fight on and we traded a couple more broadsides with the enemy, when a great chance presented itself. The French captain kept oncoming, twisting and turning to fire but it became obvious to me that he was going to attempt a boarding action and so as he closed to within 200 yards I gave the order for full sail and to turn hard to starboard, he put a broadside into our port side and at that range it was devastating but I got what I wanted, I turned back to port and put a full broadside at point blank range into his stern only to see it hold. I know not what the French make their ships with but for it to hold as it did against what I unleashed; it was truly disheartening and almost unbelievable. I now knew that I would not win this engagement by cannon and I ordered the lads to change the cannons again, this time to canister.

Both ships were now within grappling range and each of us missed once as we continued to pour canister shot onto the enemy, he switched his shot to the same. I ordered another grapple attempt and my men caught her! I and my boarding party took to the enemy decks to find about equal numbers waiting for us being led by the French captain. It was a vicious fight and many were lost on both sides but in the end we were beaten back unfortunately by the French.

During this time the men left on the Agincourt had done a miraculous job of patching her up and I began to turn her around away from the enemy, however, due to sail and rudder damage this proved difficult and the now faster, more maneuverable French frigate turned and caught up with us, its captains putting his ship's body against the Agincourt's bow to block us and pouring canister onto us. After a few broadsides the French now boarded us. I gave the order to repel boarders at all costs and readied myself to go down fighting when the French captain called a truce and asked to speak to me. He was willing to let the Agincourt and her crew go in exchange for some gold. Knowing that we were outnumbered and that there was no tactical or strategic reason to keep fighting, I paid him off deciding to save the lives of my crew and my ship to fight another day. With a tiphat, the French captain was off and I limped the Agincourt back to Port Royal.

Written by my hand,

Captain Roderick Morrow

The Result:
A surrender to Ubert at the cost of 6 MOVs

Lessons Learned:
Ubert is very good at what he does, he comes right at you, using explosive and then either switching or mixing it up with anti personnel shot to damage reload and turning. He uses his spikes very well and his ship is rigged for defensive resistance and I believe damage. I learned that I have to remember my spikes better especially when given something like that stern shot. I gave him a full broadside at pointblank range but did not use disable rudder or ultima. Would it have made a difference? Don't know now. The other thing is to not lose hope even if the other ship seems indestructible (which his did) and is turning yours into swiss cheese (which he was) you just have to react and adapt. Seeing that I would not win at ship combat I changed to canister and boarded him when our crews were fairly even about 90ish. I could not get anymore since I had already used my lucky albatross and rally the crew so I did the best I could. Besides my main goal was to buy time for my repairs to cool down not win the combat then hopefully repair and eitehr witdraw or come back at him with more crew for a second boarding. Still I came close in that first one, neither of us had any waves left but he had a full 5 crew still on deck to my 0. After the boarding I fired both an admiral and emergency repairs and began to heal fast but my sail damage was too great and he caught me and that second boarding he had 8 waves to my 4 so I took him up on his offer of giving him 6 MOVs and saving a dura on my Sleek. Though I lost I found it enjoyable and confidence boosting. I know he had to be sweating out that boarding combat and I lasted about 20 minutes as opposed to the first time I fought him in skirmish where I sank in 5 minutes.