Man o' War

After a bit of Sails of Glory at Barrie's I thought it time to do some more of our home grown Man o' War Rules. I've picked up some new Airfix Victories to add to the old 60's models (they are still making the same model after all these years)  so could put 13 ships on the table.
British: Mike & James each with 3 ships, 1 2nd rate & 2 3rd rate all with elite crews.
French: Mark with 1 1st rate & 2 3rd rates with regular crews.
             Jim with 1 2nd rate & 3 rd rates with regular crews.

The wind is coming from the left.  The Brits are at the far end, James upwind on the left.Mark has the French windward column on the left.

James is sailing close hauled while Mike is charging ahead on a beam reach.  Mark intially turned to windward, but seeing what the Brits are doing turned back onto a reach as Jim tacked up to combine the 2 French squadrons.

Jim's & Mike's squadrons sail past each other exchanging broadsides while a wimnd shift as cause chaos in Mark's squadron.  But James is too far away to take advantage.

Mike's squadron has passed down to windward as James' squadron sails into an unequal melee with both French squadrons. 

Mike is struggling to turn round and beat back upwind as the French pound James' squadron. 

Two of the French ships have peeled off with serious damage, but all 3 of James' ships are critically damaged  & surrounded.  One by one by one they have to strike while Mike is still beating back to windward.

Five French ships remain in fighting shape & turn to take on Mike as the other ships get out of the way and round up the prisoners.

Mike's 3 ships are the ones in the centre with 5 French ships on this side of them.  The lead British ship has just struck its colour.  That makes 4 ships sunk or struck out of 6 so the Brits fail their fleet morale test & have to concede the battle.

It was a good battle for the Frog.  The Brits made a mistake at the start and the French took full advantage.  In this battle we put the damage logs on the ship's bases instead of on separate boards.  It's a moot point which is best. 

Meanwhile in Suffolk:
My friend in England is currently fighting Trafalgar using these rules.

This is the start of the battle set up ready to go.  Only the heads of the British columns are on the table.  They use some local variations including separate damage logs.