Naval battles?

I have been reading the Hornblower series, and wondering whether there is a practical way to stage mock naval battles for catamarans. The idea is to fire from 10 yards to 20 yards, and have some way of determining when a boat has been put out of action.

Paintball guns would work, but they would probably trash sails if they hit them, and I imagine that paint is kinda permanent, too.

Any ideas?

Jonathan

The answer is spam (the supposedly edible kind). One of the Florida fleets used to (maybe still does) have a spam war every year. Rations of spam are handed out to the sailors as ammunition. Sorry, I can't remember the "rules of engagement" for the battle and whether any types of mechanical launching techniques were allowed. Maybe someone from that fleet will see this and explain the game, but I'm sure you can come up with your own rules.

We used to get anywhere from 8 to 15 cats together on a full moon and each boat would put 5$ into the kitty and each boat left the shore one by one in 10 minute intervals. After the last boat left , we gave them 10 minutes and sounded a horn to signal the start. Each boat was equiped with a water baloon launcher(surgical tubing and a bra cup). If you were hit by a water baloon, you had to retire to the campsite and the last boat unhit would get the kitty bank. Lots of fun!!
Don Caldwell

Regarding water balloons, maybe they are allowed on inland lakes, but we can't use them in ocean areas because if the balloons end up left in the water, they may be ingested by sea animals and birds --potentially fatal results. Maybe that's why someone thought of spam.

I hope they take the can of first,

[img]http://www.nu.nl/img.db?81593+s(120!x120!) [/img]

I heard of some folks who liked doing such "Naval Battles" using catamarans. They used a tether-ball. I don't see them around much, any more, but they are a ball about the size of a volley-ball, but have a vinyl ring on one end, to which the rope is attached.

Their version of the game was a "tag-you're-it" game, but it could be modified to a game of naval battling.

The ball is launched by swinging the ball on its tether (the rope).

The advantages are that the firing catamaran had to be sufficiently well sailed, to intersect or over-take the targeted catamaran, before the cannon ball could be launched....so this game involves the practice of seamanship and boat handling skills.

Another benefit was that each catamaran (or only one catamaran, if you like that approach to the game) has only one cannon ball (tether ball) in its arsenal.

This meant, to get another "shot" at a targeted catamaran, you had to sail back to pick up the spent cannon ball, which then became the ammo for your next shot. The advantage to this was the boats were practicing MOB (man-overboard) drills.

This approach also had no debris floating in the water to endanger aquatic life and if you ran over the ammo, it doesn't damage the boat...or any other boats in the area.

If the ammo becomes lost and can't be located , it is a cool find for someone, somewhere on some shore. Put a note on it and it would be interesting to discover where it is eventually found....

Just some goof off thoughts...

Tom H.

Spam, eh? Sounds entertaining. I can't quite figure out how to shoot it. Unless....I wonder if a variation on a tennis ball cannon would work?

Does spam show up well once it has landed?

Jonathan

I think they just threw the spam by hand.

Some might say that ingesting Spam might just as or more dangerous to wildlife as ingesting balloon leftovers!