I know the title looks like the title of a videogame about 18th century warships, but that's not the point.

Straightforward question - how did age of sail warships (18th century I mean - so picture Empire TW and Napoleon TW warships) manage to efficiently fight considering...


  • guns only on the sides (so that meant switching the ship)
  • sails (so wind propulsion only - making first rates and second rates literally immovable in light wind)


So... how did they manage to effectively fight? Because it would have been quite a long, drawn out battle if all you had were huge ships and light wind.