Thirsk & Ahlvarez - SPOILER

True, In heavy seas there is low likelyhood of fighting action, but there is no obligation to engage if you can avoid action to return to fight at your desire. Speed gives the great advantage of working regardless of wind (to some degree) or at least working to an advantagous position tomorrow or day after. Sail craft in heavy weather must reduce sail and work the wind. That is an artform in itself.

The option to power away from a disadvantaged situation and return or keep in loose contact until you can engage is almost unfair in a sail vs power battle. Sea battles can go on for a long time.

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:
But in the Safehold story you have Delthak and her sisters traveling the 8,000 miles between Charis and Siddar City. You also have Delthak rescuing that galleon in a storm... Sounds pretty sea worthy to me. Indeed, the most significant limitation seems to be her range depending on how much coal she can carry. Now is all of this handwavium? Perhaps somewhat, but in major part no.

As i say: "Miantonomoh" crossed the Atlantic in 11 days, 3800 kilometers from the Newfoundlend to Portsmuth. Ocean, not the relatively narrow Safeholdian seas. She was an ocean-going monitor, and was fit (at least, theoretically) for those actions. And she probably was able to save some unfortunate sailship even in storm.

Still, it was absolutely impossible for her to battle in open sea in anything else than calm weather.

The river ironclads have one big problem: they should be small enough to serve on rivers. So... in calm sea, charisian river ironclads would be formidable foe for any galleon fleet.

In even relatively bad weather, the best that they could do is to strike colours immediatly. Their low placed gunports made any attempt to fire guns in bad weather the immediate suicide.

Why strike your colors? If fighting is contraindicated by the situation, turn and run away. The galleon certainly isn't going to be able to catch you.

Don

n7axw wrote:Why strike your colors? If fighting is contraindicated by the situation, turn and run away. The galleon certainly isn't going to be able to catch you.

Don

Well, they could still make and attempt to ram the enemy... but it looks like that there are some pejustice against ramming.

Let's not forget that RFC went out of his way to point out the split-second timing required for the HMS Delthak to turn back against the waves to rescue the dismasted Tellesberg Queen, and that such timing was entirely due to the extensive experience of Halcom Bahrns, Delthak's captain. Frankly, it was an insane thing to do and only an extremely experienced captain with years of experience and nearly 20,000 miles at her helm could have pulled it off.

"All right, My Lady, he thought. We’ve gotten to know each other better these past months. Now let’s see if we can truly do this.
He closed his eyes, concentrating on the fusion of his hand with the bridge railing, emptying his mind, waiting.…
“Now, Master Cahnyrs! Hard a starboard! Stop starboard engine, full ahead larboard!”

Zherald Cahnyrs had no idea what had prompted the captain’s timing. He could see absolutely no difference in the incoming waves or howling wind, but he never hesitated. His head whipped around.
“Hard a starboard! Stop starboard engine! Full ahead larboard!” he barked into the conning tower.
“Helm hard a starboard, aye, aye, Sir!” PO Crahmynd Fyrgyrsyn acknowledged, spinning the wheel.
“Stop starboard, aye, aye!” the telegraphsman sang out, yanking the brass handle to the full stop position. “Full ahead larboard, aye, aye, Sir!” He rocked the other handle all the way forward, and HMS Delthak lurched to starboard.
The big rudder bit hard, yet the suddenly unbalanced thrust of her screws drove her still harder. She went up on her starboard side, tipping as if she meant to roll completely over. But she didn’t. Somehow, she didn’t, and she was two-thirds of the way around when the far larger and heavier wave, the one Halcom Bahrns had known was coming even though no eye could have seen it, hit her. It drove her the rest of the way around, pushing her head to the northeast."

Turning back into the waves once the tow line was attached was almost as dangerous.

"The serried ranks of waves had to have reached more than twenty feet in height, their crests toppling and tumbling, rolling over in wind-torn spray that baffled and confused the eye. If it wasn’t a strong gale already, it would be shortly, for it was still building strength, and he felt the breath of necessity hot on his neck.
Maybe so, he told himself, but rushing will only get you killed. Patience, Halcom. Patience...
He stood there, gauging the moment, then nodded to himself.
“Hard to larboard!”
Delthak staggered and rolled as she answered her helm, but this time she was bringing her bow to wind and wave. She climbed up the flank of a mountain of water, lurched to larboard, and went sledding down the wave’s back. Her screws came completely out of the water for a moment, racing, shaking her like a cat-lizard with a spider-rat. Then they bit into the sea again, driving her down into the trough between waves. Another massive wall of water crashed into her larboard bow, white and green exploding vertically upward with the sound of a cannon shot. The shock of the impact slammed the soles of Bahrns’ feet as if someone had hit the grating under them with a sledgehammer, but then she was around, sweeping astern of Tellesberg Queen to come up on the galleon’s larboard side barely sixty feet clear."

One point we often forget is the inherent delay in the ironclad's control system. The captain gives the orders, which are relayed to the crew, who follow them as quickly as possible - but Captain Bahrns had to include that delay into his calculations when ordering the Delthak's two changes of direction.

It was a monumental achievement, part luck, part skill, but had he tried it again, or tried it a few minutes later into even larger waves, Delthak most likely would not have survived.

Totaly agree. The low-side, shallow draft ship is perfect to coastal service. In Hampton Road, the USS "Monitor" would be able to chase the HMS "Warrior" away on the best speed that the british ship could mantain. But in open sea, the roles were absolutely differen; the USS "Monitor" would find herself unable to even fire her guns safely in the weather, that HMS "Warrior" would simply not notice.

So the charisian river ironclads were the formidable power in coastal waters, but it would be too much to demand that they may be able to engage even the Church ships in open sea.

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:
But in the Safehold story you have Delthak and her sisters traveling the 8,000 miles between Charis and Siddar City. You also have Delthak rescuing that galleon in a storm... Sounds pretty sea worthy to me. Indeed, the most significant limitation seems to be her range depending on how much coal she can carry. Now is all of this handwavium? Perhaps somewhat, but in major part no.

As i say: "Miantonomoh" crossed the Atlantic in 11 days, 3800 kilometers from the Newfoundlend to Portsmuth. Ocean, not the relatively narrow Safeholdian seas. She was an ocean-going monitor, and was fit (at least, theoretically) for those actions. And she probably was able to save some unfortunate sailship even in storm.

Still, it was absolutely impossible for her to battle in open sea in anything else than calm weather.

The river ironclads have one big problem: they should be small enough to serve on rivers. So... in calm sea, charisian river ironclads would be formidable foe for any galleon fleet.

In even relatively bad weather, the best that they could do is to strike colours immediatly. Their low placed gunports made any attempt to fire guns in bad weather the immediate suicide.

They could ram a wooden ship, probably! Certainly any nonwarship. But opening up, as you say, would be suicide.

Wait wait wait... do wooden sailing ships even fight in the kind of heavy weather that would sink an iron clad in the first place? I got the impression from those passages that sailing ships in those conditions are usually trying their best just to survive the weather themselves.

Dilandu wrote:Totaly agree. The low-side, shallow draft ship is perfect to coastal service. In Hampton Road, the USS "Monitor" would be able to chase the HMS "Warrior" away on the best speed that the british ship could mantain. But in open sea, the roles were absolutely differen; the USS "Monitor" would find herself unable to even fire her guns safely in the weather, that HMS "Warrior" would simply not notice.

So the charisian river ironclads were the formidable power in coastal waters, but it would be too much to demand that they may be able to engage even the Church ships in open sea.

There are no more waters in all of Charis that are better described as coastal waters as Gulf of Dohlar, Hankey Sound, Gulf of Tanshar and the Bay of Bess. This is where they will dominate the seas and control all ocean commerce to a great degree.

The Delthaks will get there either via The Great Western Ocean or as we expect via the Silkiah-Salthar Channel or both. There are 28 of them according to RFC. All that is needed is Bunkering facilities somewhere like the Dohlar Bank, Cliff Island or on the Harris Peninsula.

Well, the USS "Monitor" sunk in the definitely coastal waters of Cape Hatters. So, if the Charis insist on having the HMS "Marhy Sue" in underwater actions...

Dilandu wrote:Well, the USS "Monitor" sunk in the definitely coastal waters of Cape Hatters. So, if the Charis insist on having the HMS "Marhy Sue" in underwater actions...

I'm not sure most sailors would classify the waters off Cape Hatteras as "coastal" in nature, exactly. The US Pilot Guide contains the following info about Hatteras:

"One of the more frequent weather features the mariner encounters along the coast is the winter storm or “Nor’easter.” These Extratropical systems can develop in any month. Their size can vary from an insignificant wave along a front to a gigantic circulation that covers most of the western North Atlantic. Winds can reach hurricane force and seas of 40 feet (12 m) and more have been encountered. While these storms are usually well forecasted they can develop or deepen explosively, particularly off Cape Hatteras, over the Gulf Stream, giving rise to the term “Hatteras Storms.”"

and

"The area from Cape Hatteras to Cape Henry, exposed as it is to the ocean, is subject to severe northeasterly ocean storms as well as migratory continental pressure systems. Cape Hatteras is particularly exposed to the winds, with open sea from north through east to southwest."

Hell, I get pretty nervous here in Newfoundland singlehanding my sailboat when I run across stretches of 10-25 miles (i.e., at least 5 or 6 hours from any port/anchorage) which is exposed to the open ocean or crossing a large bay that size on the open ocean end. Things can go south real fast in the Atlantic and many of the same factors that make weather such a problem here exist in the Hatteras area as well.

That said, Sable Island over Nova Scotia way would be an even better analog, and there are at least as many wrecks there as at Hatteras.