Alternative commercial shipping for T2K

[Targan]

Here in Australia we have a sail training ship called the Leeuwin II which regularly visits my local port of Fremantle.

http://www.sailleeuwin.com/site/articles_index.phparticleURL=/site/20_about_us/10_about_main.htm

She is a three masted barquentine and I see no reason why she would not have survived the Twilight War. Interestingly you will see in the ship's specifications at that site I linked to that the ship is not a refurbished historic ship, it is a modern vessel built by Tenix Defence and has a steel hull and a teak deck.

[Mohoender]

Here in Australia we have a sail training ship called the Leeuwin II which regularly visits my local port of Fremantle.

http://www.sailleeuwin.com/site/articles_index.phparticleURL=/site/20_about_us/10_about_main.htm

She is a three masted barquentine and I see no reason why she would not have survived the Twilight War. Interestingly you will see in the ship's specifications at that site I linked to that the ship is not a refurbished historic ship, it is a modern vessel built by Tenix Defence and has a steel hull and a teak deck.

Thats why I chose not to list it. Except if I'm mistaken it was commissioned in 1989. Therefore, it could not be available to Australia if you follow v1.0 but it would be there if you follow v2.0.

I was sure you would not miss it Targ.

[weswood]

Here's one I plan on using if I ever get a chance:

http://www.tallshiprose.org/

There's such a myrad choice of vessel types I couldn't come up with a definative list. You can have a hull with the sails set one way and it's called this, change the sail plan and it's called that.

I've got about three different references I'm trying to convert into a simple rules system. I've got a very comprehensive article in an old Dragon Magazine, and downloaded "Corsair" for the d20 system, and "Ships and Sea Battles" for a system called 7th sea. But everything is giving me different stats, ie, the crew for a frigate is 100 in Corsair, 150 in Ships and Sea Battles, 120 from the Dragon article, and 450 for the Constitution in "Gateway to the Spanish Main.

Plus Targan was kind enough to send me the Challenge article, which i promptly lost when I got a new computer. I swear I had saved it to disk. And I might have....

[TiggerCCW UK]

We had the Tall Ships here in Belfast last month and I got a load of pics of them, although the weather was abysmal. I'll try and get a few up on here, there were a few mentioned in the thread that I saw when they were here. I'll try and get them up soon, although as I'm moving house again at the end of the month it might take a while....

[Mohoender]

There is one vital thing that's been overlooked so far - skill.

Particularly in western countries, the skill to effectively pilot a sail driven boat has becoming increasingly rare. Most recreational "sailors" tend to use engines more than wind power.
Added to that, without high tech navigational aids such as GPS, many of these people will be restricted to "sailing" within sight of land.

I remembered that someone was adressing the problem of high tech navigational aids.

However, if the point is fair when it comes to recreational sailors, it becomes a non sense when talking of military commanders and officers sailing the high seas.

If you travel to the Indian ocean, most captain now how to use a tool name "Kamal" and designed for navigational aid. However, this is a limited tool and you can count that these captains from the Indian Ocean would not be able to run a boat outside of this ocean.

When, you talk about navy officers (civilian and military) they are still taught how to use a sextant. At least that is valid for the French Naval Academy but I'm convinced that this is equally valid for most western navies. Their knowledge might be a bit rusty but i'm convinced it will come back fast (navy officers are also the only one still largely knowing Morse code). After all the old sextant remain the only way to find out what your location is when your computer is failing you (computers running under microsoft they must be failing all the time. Minor failure for most of the time of course.)

[Mohoender]

Problem with lighthouse on manning them, they would make themselves targets for marauders or pirates.

Right for the one on land but not that right for the one at sea. Landing on the sea light house is tricky and most pirates would die trying. In addition, if you don't have what it take to blow it up and if the two or three guys in it have enough ammunitions, you don't have a chance to get on top.

[Targan]

Because the system I use for my T2King is derived from a low-fantasy, high realism mediaeval RPG there are a number of different skills characters in my campaign can use to navigate at sea. The obvious choice for most military characters is Navigation using modern (although not necessarily very high tech) techniques.The other is to use the original Harnmaster skill of Piloting which uses methods of navigation from before the time when you had accurate sea-borne clocks (and therefore couldn't accurately determine longitude).

Piloting uses techniques such as the use of rutters, books that professional pilots built up over their careers that contained all the sea lore, maps and navigational instructions that they had collected during their careers. It also involves the use of the sun, the stars, possibly a lodestone and/or compass to determine direction and also knowing the patterns of winds, waves and clouds to determine distance from land and underlying seabed features.

My brother's character in my campaign was a young US marine who was originally from American Samoa. His char gen was a blast because before he joined the USMC he led a fairly traditional Samoan lifestyle and was a very proficient sailor (using primative dugout canoes) and fisherman. He was also a reasonably successful smuggler as a teenager. He was easily the equal of the USN characters in my campaign when it came to getting around on the ocean.