The French squadron leader captain Lefebvre brought his small squadron in towards the Spanish island of Asunción hoping to raid the outpost there for critical intelligence. As he approached, his flagship *La Sirène* spotted a larger Spanish fleet bearing down on him around the island, to windward. At the same time, the seas became heavy, and it became clear that he would have to close the lower gunports to avoid taking in water. ![[may_31 - 1.png]] The Spanish bore down with steady and grim determination, their heavy ships weathering the French fire. Lefebvre noted that his best chance of forcing them to strike was to take the dispatch sloop at the rear of their line, and maybe another ship, but he would have to weather the fire from the Spanish flagship and frégate first, and had precious little sea-room in which to do it, as he was approaching the island. He ordered the brigantine *La Reine du Vent* to proceed to the island and complete the raid, while he and the consort corvette *La Panthère* would hold off the Spanish. > I had a theory of victory at the outset, but it was narrow: I could take out the Spanish flagship with concentrated fire and take the objective point, and then if I could cause just one more crippled ship, I would win. But it was narrow, and I didn’t have a lot of board to complete it. In retrospect, there was a better approach, but I’ll write that up at the end. Alas, while the crew of the *Reine* was able to complete their objective, the Spanish were able to ignore the French broadsides, and the *Sirène* was forced to come up hard to windward to avoid the island. A Spanish brigantine at the back of their line swerved and raked the bows of the French flagship, which tried desperately to grapple and board the Spanish dispatch sloop, but to no avail. The *Panthère* swerved off but ran aground on the island, and was hammered by broadsides from the rest of the Spanish line. ![[may_31 - 2.png]] As the *Sirène* slowly sank, the *Reine* tried valiantly to at least escape with the intelligence they had stolen, but with the destruction of the *Panthère* (which had managed to get off the rocks, but not without significant damage), there was nothing for it, and they were forced to strike, rather than try to outrun the entire Spanish squadron. ![[may_31 - 3.png]] > The thing I belatedly realized was that I couldn’t bring my powerful guns to bear with the Rough Seas event, but I could have boarded: between Elan, being French, and Additional Crew upgrades, I had a powerful argument for winning in boarding, and it would let me ignore the high Fortitude and High Freeboard on the lead of the Spanish line. I should have moved in for an aggressive boarding action to begin with, taken two if I could, and then if I still somehow needed a strike point, gone for the objective. Further, this would tie up his most powerful ships in boarding, leaving the smaller-Broadside support ships to harry me, which would be less of a concern. Ah well, hindsight and all that!