This material was prepared during the development of the pirate life simulation game Corsairs Legacy by Ukrainian Mauris studio with the aim of popularizing the marine theme in general and pirate games in particular. You can follow the project news on our website, YouTube channel, and Telegram.

In this article, Kirill Nazarenko will analyze the list of current ship models from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own, which was prepared by the Corsairs Legacy game team together with BlackMark Studio.

I was asked to talk about the ships in the updated version of the Sea Dogs. Let's start with Tartana. It seems to me that a fairly convincing Latin sail (a triangular sail) and an oblique staysail (a triangular sail raised ahead of the foremast) or an oblique jib (a triangular sail going from the mast to the bowsprit) came out. In general, it looks pretty good. This is a very real version of a simple sailing armament of a small vessel.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Tartana

There is another version of the tartan with two Latin sails, but I think this is a bit difficult for such a small vessel with such a short hull. By the way, it would be very nice if the developers used the option of setting Latin sails like a butterfly. This was typical of tailwind sailing on this type of ship, with one sail turning to starboard and the other to port. Thus, the long sides of these sails were on different sides, and a more efficient operation of this sailing mechanism was obtained.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Tartan with two sails

Further, three-masted ships appear under the name “lugger”. Although in my understanding, the lugger would be perfect if you remove this forward mast and the rear mast, which stuck to the stern (rear of the ship's hull) in a very ridiculous way. But here is a low-lying, almost horizontal bowsprit (a tree protruding forward from the bow of a sailing ship) — this is a distinctive design for a lugger. But at the same time, for some reason, rake sails (a kind of Latin sails) with inclined slats are also depicted here, although the classic oblique sails would be more inherent in the lugger.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Lugger

Lugger Siren is about the same. The main complaint is too many masts on small ships. It must be remembered that in the sailing era, the number of varieties of sailing weapons of one and two-masted ships was gigantic, and just this could be implemented in a computer game. While the armament of the three-masted ships was very standard, it differed only in small details. It seems to me that the authors of the picture for some reason do not work on this line, for some reason they want to put as many masts on their ships as possible. Why they do this is not very clear.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Sloop

There is a ship in the game that is called a "sloop", so I would rather call it a lugger. It has several straight sails on a single mast, a long bowsprit with three clovers, and a large gaff sail (a sail shaped like an irregular trapezoid) also attached to this single mast.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: barquentine

If we talk about what is called a barquentine, then this is again a three-masted ship, with the front mast with straight sails. The rest — mostly with slanting ones. But in principle, this is typical for the barquentine of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Barquentine is a schooner-bark, that is, a ship combining the armament of a barque and a schooner. The front mast with straight sails, as it were, from a barque, and the rear masts with oblique sails from a schooner, but if everything is done correctly, then the mainsail (lower straight sail on the mainmast) should not have fallen into the armament of this barquentine.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: bark

There is a vessel here called a bark, which is a three-masted vessel with straight sails on a foremast (the first mast, counting from the bow of the vessel) and a mainmast (the second mast, counting from the bow of the vessel). Actually, this is a ship with classic direct sailing weapons. The mizzen mast (third mast counting from the bow) has a straight topsail and a gaff sail at the bottom of the mast.

There may even be too many sails on the bowsprit here because there are two jibs and two more straight sails under the bowsprit. The shape of the hull rather hints at the fact that this ship belongs to the beginning of the 18th century because it has a gap in the upper deck, that is, there is an open waist (middle part of the upper deck) with rather long quarters (aft deck) and poop deck (ship's stern superstructure). But, perhaps, it was necessary to slightly reduce the number of slanting sails, and then it would have been a small-masted vessel, which I would rather call a frigate of the early 18th century. In the form in which it is depicted here, this is not a very realistically made vessel.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: The trading schooner

The trading schooner is a normal schooner, but I still have complaints about it. According to the classical definition, a schooner is a ship with oblique sailing rigging. That is, if we take what the authors of the game did, remove the straight sails from the foremast, that is, from the front mast, and leave only oblique ones, then we will get a normal schooner.

Why it was necessary to attach direct sails to the front mast is not clear. Generally, the whole point of the schooner was that oblique sails are much easier to maintain than straight ones. For their maintenance, you do not need to climb anywhere and you can work from the deck. Therefore, merchant ships, which have always experienced a shortage of crew, were very good at arming the schooner. This made it possible to save a lot on the number of people. Therefore, putting straight sails on a schooner was completely pointless.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: flute

I like the flute, it looks like a normal ship from the 17th century. It is three-masted. On the foremast and mainmast, there are straight sails, and large topsails, which was typical of the 17th and early 18th centuries. On the mizzen mast, there is a Latin sail. On the bowsprit, there is a spritsail-topmast (a straight sail fixed under the bowsprit), that is, a vertical spar standing on the bowsprit. The body shape is also very good. It is indeed something very similar to 17th-century flutes. Another thing is that already in the 18th century such ships fell into disuse. Moreover, since different times are a little mixed here, then, perhaps, it should not have met with ships of later types. But, the flute itself is good.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: shnyava

The next ship is a shnyava. This is a two-masted vessel, a prototype of a brig. In this case, we see again something like a flute, but only with a straighter hull, without a prominent stern superstructure. Therefore, I would rather say that this is a kind of flute, but just a later one.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: the brig

We pass to the brig. This is a normal brig, everything is more or less on the case. Although the classic brig did not have a direct mainsail, that is, a lower direct sail on the mainmast. In this case, the mainmast is the second mast, the first mast is the foremast. However, in the early modifications of the brig, this sail could be, therefore both the shape of the hull and the sailing rigging are almost ideal here.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: brigantine

As for the brigantine Belle of the fourth class, it can also be considered a good option. There are straight sails on the foremast and oblique sails on the main mast. That is, I somehow believe in this brigantine, it looks like a real one.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: the military schooner

Next comes the military schooner. Here they decided to depict the so-called topsail schooner, that is, a schooner that carries oblique sails, but which has a topsail: one relatively small straight sail on both masts. This type is well-known, but then it should have simply been called “Marseille schooner”, and not “military schooner”. Perhaps there are some translation errors here. I also approve of this ship.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: a light xebec

Next comes a light xebec. It really is a xebec, and a three-masted one, which is not as common as a two-masted one. This is a light vessel of the Mediterranean basin, armed with Latin sails, which was used both by pirates and smugglers and in the fleets of, say, Spain, to fight pirates and smugglers. Well, here, too, the shape of the hull with such a distinctive overhanging poop deck, with a rather short bowsprit — all this inspires confidence.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: a patrol brig

Next, we have a patrol brig. This is about the same brig as the one I was talking about earlier. I would still remove the lower straight mainsail from it. Otherwise, the brig is quite satisfactory.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Private ketch

Private ketch is, of course, a difficult question, because the word “ketch” was used to refer to different vessels. So could be called light ships of coastal navigation, which were used in the English Channel and off the coast of England. And ships could be called a ketch, especially in the English fleet, on which 2–3 mortars were placed. They were called "bombardier's kits" and were used to shell coastal targets. At the same time, a distinctive feature of the ketch was a large main mast, and a small mast at the stern was a mizzen mast.

Although there is always a dispute, how to call the masts of a two-masted vessel: go by their height or go by their position on the deck? Well, if this is a bombarding ketch, then it needs to pull the main mast closer to the stern because the mortars were placed in front of this mast. But if the authors of the game had in mind such a lightship for the coastal navigation of South Britain, then the ship in this form is quite acceptable. Although I am a little confused by the too-low mizzen mast and the question arises: why is such a sharp difference between the two masts in height?

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: galleon

Now let's look at the galleon. It resembles a sailing ship of the 16th or early 17th century, too massive by the standards of the late sailing era. Although I must say that it is generally accepted that the galleon should have a high aft superstructure, be massive and fixed. Although this high aft superstructure had ships that were called nao, in fact, just ships or carracks.

However, the galleons just got their name from the fact that their hull resembled a galley, that is, they were quite low and even in architecture. Therefore, in this case, it is rather nao or karakka. But with such a poor sailing armament, characteristic of the 16th century, it will fit on some ships of the 16th century. The only thing that spoils the picture is the cannon ports cut low by the water. On the ships of that time, they still preferred to cut through higher, because the lower the cannon ports, the more likely it is that you will not be able to open them because of the waves.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: caravel

Now the caravel. The caravel is already a four-masted ship with straight sails on the foremast and Latin sails on the remaining masts, but also quite advanced superstructures. To be honest, I think that the caravel is still a small coastal vessel of the Spanish region. It is characterized by Latin sails and a rather light hull without a powerful superstructure.

But let me remind you that Columbus in his famous squadron had a small ship “Nina” as a caravel since in Spanish it means “girl” or “baby”. While the other two ships, "Santa Maria" and "Pinta", were ships of a higher class. But I don't believe in this caravel. Moreover, I do not believe in low-cut cannon ports, moreover, for some reason grouped in pairs. This is an absolutely illogical arrangement of cannon ports, so we reject this Royal caravel.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: the karakka

Next comes the karakka Konkeran. This is a typical karakka of the 16th century, I would say, just exemplary. It has high superstructures in the bow, the stern, and the bow, there is an even bigger scale. These superstructures served as firing decks for boarding teams, at a time when boarding was the main means of naval combat for both pirates and state navies in the 16th century. The relatively meager sailing rigging on three masts with a Latin sail on a mizzen is very typical for large ships of the 16th century.

Everything is great here and there are no complaints. However, if you carp, you can notice a bowsprit that is too raised and a straight sail on it that is too raised. Although this can also be explained: it may be necessary to raise this sail so high that the hull does not create a wind shadow and the sail works normally. Therefore karakka is accepted.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: the corvette

Next comes the corvette. I have already said that there are mixed types of ships that have never sailed simultaneously on the sea. And the corvette is a type that developed at the end of the 18th century. Moreover, this is a French term, the Americans called it a sloop. Here, a Latin sail on a mizzen mast is completely in vain, because Latin sails were expelled from warships already in the middle of the 18th century. A straight sail on a bowsprit looks absolutely ridiculous on a corvette. However, if we assume that this is not a corvette, but some kind of frigate of the first half of the 18th century, then, perhaps, these elements will be justified.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: pinas

Next comes Emino's pinas. This is such a completely normal vessel of the 17th century with a spritsail topmast and a Latin sail on a mizzen mast, with a rather distinctive hull shape. By the way, galleons had approximately the same stern of the hull, with a rather smoothly rising stern in the absence of manifested superstructures in the stern.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Polacca

Now Polacca. I am very confused by the combination of a Latin sail on the foremast with a direct rigging of the mainmast. I don't know what they meant by that. This is probably an attempt to somehow develop the idea of ​​xebec. It is possible that similar experiments were carried out in the Mediterranean in the French or Spanish fleet. But I don’t remember a similar type of sailing rig to the one shown here on real ships. Although, it cannot be ruled out that there were some cases of such experiments.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: xebec Gampet

Next, we have another xebec — xebec Gampet. This is a good three-masted xebec. Although it is not clear why all xebecs are three-masted — they could also make a two-masted one. Even such a distinctive canopy in the stern is shown here, it is emphasized that the hull of the xebec is very close to the hull of the galley. Yes, but then it was necessary to make it a little narrower and emphasize that this is a very fast vessel, although not very agile. It is intended for a relatively closed basin of the Mediterranean Sea. Because to withstand the ocean wave, the body should be rather close in shape to a chicken egg cut along, that is, have a sufficiently large width and not be very long.

Such a body resists waves well. Moreover, if we build a wooden ship long and narrow, like a galley, it will not withstand waves well, it will be flooded and there is a threat of breaking this hull on a wave. Therefore, if you are working on the theme of a light Mediterranean vessel, make the hull elongated and low. And, if you are working out the idea of ​​​​an ocean-going vessel, then it needs to be made shorter and wider. But here the authors tried to reach some strange compromise.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: the small frigate Formidable

Now the small frigate Formidable. Sailing rigging hints that this is the beginning of the 19th century. Moreover, here the hull is painted the way they began to paint only during the Napoleonic Wars: a wide white stripe along the black hull. Such a coloration with a wide white or yellow stripe developed in the English fleet and was finally approved after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Furthermore, somewhere in the 20s of the 19th century, this fashion got into all other fleets, and in the 30s-60s of the 19th century, almost all ships were painted this way. Then such black and white color were transferred to steamships.

The only thing I don’t like about this frigate is that for some reason it has gaffs attached to the foremast and the main mast, that is, inclined spars attached to the mast at one end, and slanting sails are set on them. In the real world, the gaff only stood on the mizzen mast, and here it is correctly shown. In general, there should be a boom down there — a horizontal log that pulls the lower edge of the sail — the luff. But the gaffs on the foremast and mainmast look like absolute nonsense. Between the fore and main masts, or the main mast and the mizzen mast, it was possible to put a staysail, that is, slanting sails stretched on cables, and not on gaffs. Therefore, these gaffs must be removed. Therefore, the frigate is normal.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: a heavy Polacca Kepabl

Now we also have a heavy Polacca Kepabl. Here I can only repeat what I said about the Polacca in general: perhaps such strange ships were encountered somewhere, but I cannot say that I saw them somewhere.

Ships from Sea Dogs: The battleship Navio Laurier

Navio Laurier is very similar to a standard ship of the 16th – early 17th century. Everything is good here. The only thing that the bowsprit has is a jib (an extra tree that continues the bowsprit forward and up). But this is an anachronism. If we take ships of this type of the 16th - early 17th centuries, they carried a spritsail-topmast, that is, a vertical spar on a bowsprit, and not a jib. In general, the jib here is completely superfluous, it is too long. Such long bowsprits were not used at that time. Although, in general, this ship looks decent enough. If you break off the jib, then everything else will be, it seems to me, quite decent. For example, making the Latin sail on the mizzen mast a little smaller was possible, but this is already a matter of taste.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Navio Laurier

Next comes the East Indian Surprenont and this is a good ship for the 17th century. It has a spritsail topmast, a Latin sail on a mizzen mast, and a similar hull. I can only approve of it.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Heavy Galleon Amporte

Heavy Galleon Amporte. Here an attempt is made to convey a real case of the 16th century when on large three-masted ships they tried to put the fourth mast at the very stern with a Latin sail. In general, this is quite possible, although I would not call it a galleon, talking about the shape of the hull. I would call it a carrack or a nave.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: a heavy frigate

Next, we have a heavy frigate. However, I dislike these names: heavy frigate, and heavy galleon, because this is a transfer of steam fleet terminology. Here you can say “heavy cruiser”, but for the sailing fleet, “heavy” and “light” were not used to designate any subclasses of vessels or ships.

Let me remind you that the term “ship” denoted only a three-masted vessel and it was impossible to call a two- or one-masted vessel a ship. On this heavy frigate, the craziness is that at the same time there is a spritsail topmast, and a jib or staysail (an oblique triangular sail between the bowsprit and the foremast). It's absolutely impossible, especially being so highly placed. If you remove these oblique triangular sails, then otherwise it can be recognized as a frigate of the early 18th century. But, perhaps, it was necessary to make the side superstructure shorter and the stern superstructure longer, to hold it up to the mainmast. But in general, it can do.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: frigate Suffizant

We have one more frigate Suffizant. It just resembles such a correct frigate of the late 17th – early 18th centuries. I don't even have any complaints about it. However, there, if you look closely, there may be low-cut cannon ports. This could well be due to some peculiarities of the graphics in this model.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: Fast frigate Enfont

Fast frigate Enfont. It cannot be called a frigate, because there are two artillery decks there. This is certainly a battleship, but the combination of a Latin sail on a mizzen mast with clovers on a bowsprit, and a very developed bowsprit with a jib, is doubtful because you have to choose one.

In those days when the bowsprits looked like this and were developed, they carried a lot of jibs, instead of a Latin sail, and the mizzen had a gaff sail. Moreover, when there was a Latin mizzen, then they carried a spritsail topmast and fewer sails on a bowsprit. However, this can be recognized as some 54-gun battleships of the 18th century. I wonder, why it was impossible to simply write the types of battleships with so many cannons? Well, as it was in the 18th –19th centuries. Why was it necessary to come up with some special names?

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: warship Royal

First-class warship Royal. It is two-deck, which means from 54 to 80 guns. It has a spritsail topmast, that is, this sends us back to the 17th – early 18th centuries. Still, I don't like the giant lower sails and giant topsails here. They should have been made smaller.

Topsails of such a height could be at a certain time, but the lower sails would need to be reduced and it would be necessary to make the third tier of sails — a staysail. This is because, in the 18th century, three-masted ships carried three-tier sailing weapons. As for the coloring, there are no complaints here, because in the 18th century the ships were painted as you like, the colors could be whatever the fantasy of their commander suggested. Moreover, the crew would often paint the ship at the expense of the ship's commander himself.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: the warship Kaleuche

Next, we have the warship Kaleuche. Maybe it's so necessary for the game, but it's kind of very dirty and torn. Maybe there is some idea of ​​the authors here. In my opinion, this is just some kind of not very well-drawn battleship. The combination of clovers on a bowsprit with a Latin sail on a mizzen mast still raises some doubts.

Ships from Sea Dogs: To Each His Own: the battleship Bizarr

Next, we have the battleship Bizarr. However, this is an attempt to depict some kind of three-deck battleship. Then the artists ran into a mistake on the other hand because they drew a spritsail-topmast but at the same time a gaff sail on a mizzen mast. One thing is needed: either a spritsail-topmast or a gaff sail.

Again, two powerful staysails stretched between the spritsail topmast and foremast. But they were not used, because the topmast, that is, the vertical tree on the bowsprit, stood rather unreliably and was abandoned precisely because it did not stand very firmly. It was impossible to stretch it plainly to anything, and therefore attaching additional oblique sails to it was of great arrogance. Still, the shape of the hull, of course, refers us back to the second half of the 18th century, when ships began to have a straighter hull. But here the latrine is too large (an overhang on the bow to install the ship's bow decoration), it impresses with its size.

Ships from Sea Dogs: the battleship Volant

Now we have the battleship Volant. Here, with sailing rigging, everything is relatively good, except that I would add a third row of sails. And here the body is rather roughly drawn, it is all kind of square. It must be understood that sailing ships had rather “licked” hulls and there were few right angles on them, even though they were built of wood. They were built in rather elegant forms. The square bow superstructure hurts my eyes, which, perhaps, would be appropriate on a steamer, and not on a sailing ship.

Ships from Sea Dogs: The battleship Renomme

The battleship Renomme is a large three-deck ship and, judging by the hull, it is some kind of 100-gunner. But, again, an even more terrible size of the latrine and, again, a combination of spritsail-topmast with a gaff sail on a mizzen mast. It didn't have to be done. Although the sails here are three-tiered, here they hit the other extreme: the topsails are too short. They had to be made twice as high, while the sails of the third tier had to be made much smaller.

We hope you found this article useful!

Learn more about the Corsairs Legacy - Historical Pirate RPG Simulator project and add it to your wishlist on the game's Steam page.