Secrecy and the Sea, or: How To Orchestrate An Attack and Get Away by Ship

[MichaelB]

Something I read got me thinking.

In my story, the (only) Neren harbour is destroyed by fire (a thermite reaction, I'm thinking) by invaders, who leave as soon as the fires are lit. By the time the fires have died enough for anyone to see the sea, the ships that the invaders are on are far out and nobody can see anything more than blobs. As in, flags or colours cannot be made out.

But in The Stone Key, Carmody has written about a similar occurance: bandits have destroyed by fire the only harbour and ships of the country. The thing is, the protagonists immediately rule out invasion by sea, because the ships wouldn't be able to get away fast enough.

How would I be able to have my ships move fast enough? Bear in mind they would be sailing or rowing against a stiff northerly sea breeze (the ships would be heading south).

Or a better question, do I have to justify their distance? Could I get away with just writing it the way I want and damned by the physics?

I'd appreciate advice from any mariners online. Or people interested in ships attacking land-based constructions.

[Hippie]

It could be a very innovative ship, with PROPELLERS!!! I'm not sure how advanced your people are, though...

I know like... nothing about ships, however, so don't mind me over here... >_>

[MichaelB]

Another question to add on to that: How difficult would it be to put out a Thermite fire (Thermite=Iron Ore+Aluminium; burns at 2500*C)? More or less difficult than a tar/oil fire?

[Lord of Fools]

I would say that, as you can't get close to something burning at such temperatures without pretty much melting, much harder to put out the thermite fire.

Does this civilization have mages/ shamans/ whatever? In that case they could summon wind or something... they could even summon wind in both directions to fuel the flames AND help them on their way.

[MichaelB]

No magic, sorry. How about a normal tar/wood/oil fire, rather than a thermite fire? How hot does that burn?

[Lord of Fools]

Hot enough to be painful, but 'cool' enough to put out by hosing, buckets, laying woollen blankets on minor flair-ups. Still, if there was enough of it, it would keep the townspeople busy for a few hours at least.

[MichaelB]

Excellent.
It's going to be burning through ships, so oil, tar and wood, dried food stores, and then spreading to thatched houses, so it'll cause quite a bit of damage. I'm planning on minimal deaths, though. People would have been woken and out of their houses before the fire could spread too far, right?

[Lord of Fools]

Depends. The Great Fire of London destroyed a huge number of buildings, but only about two people died. If the people were asleep, though, it might be a different story. You might need to ensure the town has some sort of warning system- alarm bells, for instance- so that most people have time to get out of their houses before the fires come too close to them. Otherwise there're going to be a few charred corpses lying around.

[MichaelB]

Mind you, there aren't that many people who live near the main docks, mostly shopkeepers and taverns. the houses are all further inland. I'm planning to have maybe 5 or so pople dying or succumbing to the smoke.

But yeah, they do live in tar-and-straw-thatched houses, so fires are probably pretty common.