I was out in devils roar collecting my most eye watering sums of treasure to date on SoT and must have had about 40k loaded in my boat when another sloop came alongside just as i was leaving my last island.
i had offered an alliance already on my flag to anyone, but this crew had other ideas in mind so after a few cannonballs were sent my way i made a hasty get away.
but sloop vs sloop trying to run (me solo them 2 up) was never going to get me anywhere other than see how far they wanted to go into the red sea ;)
Two things struck me here as i had a decent lead on them so was trying a few things (been away from SoT for a while), if i tacked up wind with the sails at a slight angle and say 25-30 degrees on the wind (i.e. like proper sailing) they were still gaining.
the second if wend directly into the wind (impossible to sail like that) and had my sail like a jib sail then equally the other sloop was faster than me.
but i soon looked at what they were doing and if you have your sail flat against the wind and go directly into it then thats the best configuration for speed on that tack (although in real world that would make you sail backwards?!?) <-- so is this the meta to sail upwind in a sloop - flat sails?
anyway that's not the Tale!, so after working out the above i still kept out of range of the said sloop, but there was no way they would let me off load at the outpost which is when i came up with a plan.
Luckily the sea was quite high and once i got into the wind i pulled some distance on the above & im pretty sure due to how far behind they were they could only see the top deck / and sail for most of the time, so i proceeded to load up every inch of the rowing boat with all my goods
it was also pitch black which would have aided me in the next part!
i then sailed a couple of miles off shore of an outpost and set the ship up on a good heading between all the islands and jumped onto the rowing boat full of treasure, skulls, goods, gunpowder the lot!! it was overflowing and if i could upload the pic it was comical.
it took me ages to find the sit in rowing boat bit but when found and just at the right point i released the boat and rowed like mad west to the outpost.
the waves were huge and i could only see my ship sailing off when on the top of the waves, and also behind it.... the two pirates still after my goods - haha
2 mins of rowing and the boat was on the shore, i could still make out from the shore in the distance the two boats mine loosing its angle to the wind and the other catching up with it, i could only smile as i wondered what would go through their minds when they caught up, it seems i had evaded them.
Pushing the row boat up on shore and delivering all the goods took some time and each time i came back to shore i checked in on my new pirate friends, the penny had dropped and they were my way it would appear, but with most of the treasure sold i had plenty of time.
with all the treasure now sold and me some 40k better off my pirate friends caught up with me, lured by my mermaid beacon, but not by working out what had happened as on chat they boasted about sinking my ship but little did ye know :) which is how i left it
