Well what can I say? I know nothing of sailing or naval warfare and exist aboard the Hugo as merely a figurehead of authority kept far from the barely controlled chaos that is the working life of a warship.
I spend my days on the quarterdeck with the officers observing their duties, at night I am under virtual house arrest in the captain's quarters. While I am treated with respect from the crew it stands to good reason to keep clear of the "dogs", as the only woman aboard.
Despite that I have learned a lot; I can direct sailors to rig sails, observe wind conditions and with some amount of headaches, get the ship pointed in its general intended direction without collapsing the wind in her sails.
Aside from basic seamanship I can't say I enjoy life aboard ship. Conditions are squalid below decks with minimal ventilation, everything is dark and cramped. There is lots of manual work to be done, you should look at my arms now, and food, once fresh rations have been exhausted a few days from port, is terrible. Imagine passing each day with rock-hard maggot-infested biscuits, unpalatable salted meats, contaminated "drinking" water, that's just the least of it.
Worse is when the wind stops blowing and we are dead in the water, there is nothing we can do in such conditions. It gets terrifyingly hot if this happens in the day and we just have to weather it any way we can.
And last of all I hate everyone looking at me like I were but a piece of meat to them. I even had to fend off advances from the captain himself more than once; it isn't funny at all and it is all I can do to maintain a mask of ice-cold professionalism to keep those barbarians at bay.
Then after 3 weeks of slaving away for the benefit of our ship our lookouts in the dead of night spotted sporadic flashes of cannon fire in the horizon. Tacking upwind for an hour to gain the weather vane we charged towards the still-raging battle at over 12 knots of speed and chanced upon a lone merchant galleon being prosecuted by a number of small pirate sloops. The huge trade ship wasn't about to fall to those tiny gnats but her masts and sails were all but ruined, and she could only sit still and weather the withering fire thrown across her great hull that was neatly pointed downwind.
Our own escort sloops in tow we practically ran right up to the first raider who was anchored dead in the water firing rapidly at the galleon's stern. Everyone aboard the raider seemed to be looking the wrong way as we turned hard to port at the last second; the big frigate heeled alarmingly in the calm seas pointing our 18 gun broadside downwards at the sloop's waterline. The hull simply disintegrated at our breech loaders' point blank assault in a spectacular fountain of smoke and wood splinters.
Those advanced Espadian cannons based on experimental Vespanolan technology were to prove pivotal in the engagement to come, for being able to load the weapons from the rear meant a significant increase in rate of fire over existing muzzle loaders and thus we were able to easily counter the enemy's greater numbers with a fast reloading massive broadside (18 guns vs 6!) I would also say that the high rate of fire of our indigenous cannons offset admirably our lack of coordination as we are but a new ship with a new crew and this is our first battle!
We are now headed back to Porto Coimbra with the crippled Princessa Nadia of Spain in tow, and we expect to gain sight of land in 5 days.
I spend my days on the quarterdeck with the officers observing their duties, at night I am under virtual house arrest in the captain's quarters. While I am treated with respect from the crew it stands to good reason to keep clear of the "dogs", as the only woman aboard.
Despite that I have learned a lot; I can direct sailors to rig sails, observe wind conditions and with some amount of headaches, get the ship pointed in its general intended direction without collapsing the wind in her sails.
Aside from basic seamanship I can't say I enjoy life aboard ship. Conditions are squalid below decks with minimal ventilation, everything is dark and cramped. There is lots of manual work to be done, you should look at my arms now, and food, once fresh rations have been exhausted a few days from port, is terrible. Imagine passing each day with rock-hard maggot-infested biscuits, unpalatable salted meats, contaminated "drinking" water, that's just the least of it.
Worse is when the wind stops blowing and we are dead in the water, there is nothing we can do in such conditions. It gets terrifyingly hot if this happens in the day and we just have to weather it any way we can.
And last of all I hate everyone looking at me like I were but a piece of meat to them. I even had to fend off advances from the captain himself more than once; it isn't funny at all and it is all I can do to maintain a mask of ice-cold professionalism to keep those barbarians at bay.
Then after 3 weeks of slaving away for the benefit of our ship our lookouts in the dead of night spotted sporadic flashes of cannon fire in the horizon. Tacking upwind for an hour to gain the weather vane we charged towards the still-raging battle at over 12 knots of speed and chanced upon a lone merchant galleon being prosecuted by a number of small pirate sloops. The huge trade ship wasn't about to fall to those tiny gnats but her masts and sails were all but ruined, and she could only sit still and weather the withering fire thrown across her great hull that was neatly pointed downwind.
Our own escort sloops in tow we practically ran right up to the first raider who was anchored dead in the water firing rapidly at the galleon's stern. Everyone aboard the raider seemed to be looking the wrong way as we turned hard to port at the last second; the big frigate heeled alarmingly in the calm seas pointing our 18 gun broadside downwards at the sloop's waterline. The hull simply disintegrated at our breech loaders' point blank assault in a spectacular fountain of smoke and wood splinters.
Those advanced Espadian cannons based on experimental Vespanolan technology were to prove pivotal in the engagement to come, for being able to load the weapons from the rear meant a significant increase in rate of fire over existing muzzle loaders and thus we were able to easily counter the enemy's greater numbers with a fast reloading massive broadside (18 guns vs 6!) I would also say that the high rate of fire of our indigenous cannons offset admirably our lack of coordination as we are but a new ship with a new crew and this is our first battle!
We are now headed back to Porto Coimbra with the crippled Princessa Nadia of Spain in tow, and we expect to gain sight of land in 5 days.
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