[Vehicles, LT] Points-of-Sailing Effects

[Gigermann]

I'm working on an upcoming (4e) age-of-sail campaign.

I've built a spreadsheet to manage the many variables affecting a ship's travel time, making use of Vehicles Expansion 1's updated rules, including the MUA statistic. Point-of-Sailing concerns are addressed by the "Expanded Movement Rates and Sailing Table" on VE1:30. However, since I've got the spreadsheet working with all 32 compass points (via table lookup), I can spread the effects out over those points in a more granular, and accurate way, without affecting playability/usability—the VE1 table only covers 4 "basic" points (for playability, I'm sure).

For example, for a "full rig," the VE1 table gives:
On the Bow: -; Abeam: 80%; On the Quarter: 100%; Astern: 80%

With the Spreadsheet, I can cover 4 compass points for each of those.

So, my question for the age-of-sail grognards (you know who you are ;) ) among us: how would you expand that table to a full 16-points?

[Gigermann]

Answered my own question. The Naval Action PC game has profiles for all the ships it features, which is basically exactly what I need. It doesn't cover the Square Rig type, but I'm not really going to need that, I think.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Gigermann

Answered my own question. The Naval Action PC game has profiles for all the ships it features, which is basically exactly what I need. It doesn't cover the Square Rig type, but I'm not really going to need that, I think.

The frigates are square rigs.

[Gigermann]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The frigates are square rigs.

According to the descriptions in V and VE1, "A square rig (TL1) is a single broad, square sail facing toward the front of the craft, like the sail on a Greek galley or Viking longship.", and "Full Rig" is for frigates—unless I've missed something (which isn't out of the question).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Gigermann

According to the descriptions in V and VE1, "A square rig (TL1) is a single broad, square sail facing toward the front of the craft, like the sail on a Greek galley or Viking longship.", and "Full Rig" is for frigates—unless I've missed something (which isn't out of the question).

My understanding was that "square rig" meant that all the sails were square rigged, and "full rig" meant that some sails were square and others were fore and aft.

[Rupert]

A full 'ship rig' had all square sails on the masts aside from a single gaff sail on the mizzen mast (rear-most), and triangular fore-and-aft sails (staysails) between the masts, and from bowsprit to the foremast. It was the fastest sail plan for winds from the beam, and pretty fast with stern winds, but had limited ability to sail into the wind.

A barq, barque, bark, etc. rig replaced all or almost all of the square sails on the mizzen mast with fore-and-aft gaff sails (or in older versions, a lateen sail), giving better upwind performance at the expense of some speed with beam winds. A barquentine had gaff sails on both main and mizzen mast.

The original schooner had gaff sails on all masts (usually two, sometimes three), but may have had square topsails. As time went on the topsails also became fore-and-aft, and gaff sails were replaced with bermuda sails.

Generally square vs fore-and-aft, square sails are faster, but less able to move far much upwind son in adverse winds they're slower in terms of getting you where you want to go. Also they tend to need bigger crews than fore-and-aft rigs.

[Gigermann]

Originally Posted by whswhs

My understanding was that "square rig" meant that all the sails were square rigged, and "full rig" meant that some sails were square and others were fore and aft.

I could swear I had seen that description somewhere, but I haven't been able to (re)locate it. It's definitely not how Vehicles describes them.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Gigermann

According to the descriptions in V and VE1, "A square rig (TL1) is a single broad, square sail facing toward the front of the craft, like the sail on a Greek galley or Viking longship.", and "Full Rig" is for frigates—unless I've missed something (which isn't out of the question).

Okay, that may be the GURPS term-of-art usage, fair enough.

It's not the general usage by any stretch.

[Gigermann]

For the interested/curious, here's a safe copy of the spreadsheet on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gl4sOrd7IqpflY
Basically:

• Set ship stats (B1-B3)
• Set distance to be traveled for the current leg of the trip (F2)
• Set (true) course (B4)
• Set Wind strength/direction, and ocean current strength/direction (B6-B9)
• If sailing into the wind, set the starboard/larboard tack courses (B5-C5)

Distances and speeds should be correctly calculated and displayed.

Moving on:

Although I think I've found a sufficient answer to the original question, I have another related one: what would a sailing ship's performance accurately be, compared to its forward performance, while "backing"—wind fully against the sails, pushing them back against the masts—effectively driving in reverse? It doesn't appear to be very efficient (from what I've observed), but it does have some momentum to it. I haven't seen (or I've missed it) where this has been discussed in any of the GURPS material. (And Vehicles specifically excludes sailing vessels from moving in reverse, though that's clearly not true IRL if the wind is right.)

[Kax]

Full-rigged ship: all masts have square sails, but you can have fore-and-aft stay-sails as well between the masts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-rigged_ship

Challenge to include: junk-rigged, including junk-rigged with a spinnaker.