How to sail

Olympia: The Age of Gods PBEM (Oct 4 2000)

### 4.3.4: How to sail

        The king sits in Dumferline town,
          Drinking the blood-red wine:
        "O whar will I get a good sailor
          To sail this ship of mine?"

            Sir Patrick Spens (traditional)

The Sailing [1001] subskill of Shipcraft [1000] is required to pilot a ship. Nobles with the Sailing skill can pilot ships using the sail command.

A ship with both sails and rowing ports will always travel by the faster method, selecting rowing or sailing as appropriate. The ship need not have enough sailors to row and sail simultaneously, since that is never done.

Piloting a ship in deep water, out of sight of land, is dangerous without special skills. The captain must be able to navigate without landmarks, anticipate weather on the open sea, and so on. The Shipcraft [1000] subskill Navigate Deep Seas [1094] gives a captain these special skills.

A ship's captain who attempts to pilot a ship in deep waters without this skill runs a 1/3 chance for each deep sea province he crosses of encountering some sort of problem:

      Chance  Problem
      ------  -------
       40%    3-10 days extra travel time.
       40%    Travel in a wrong direction.
       15%    Rough seas causing 1-20 points damage to ship.
        5%    Capsize!

Unlike land movement, which slows down when overloaded, an overloaded ship cannot be sailed at all.