Considering we're gonna spend most of the story on board old tall ships, let's get started with the basics: the different kinds of ships you're gonna read about.
In 1670, ships without oars moved only thanks to the push of the wind in their sails, and there were many types of sailing ships, named according to size, number of masts and decks, oars or not, etc.
Here in the Legacy Saga universe, you will read mostly about brigantines and frigates, the best armed vessels back then. There are also some mentions about galleons, merchantmen and pataches.
Since author's tirany rules, I created a type of ship I called warrior, which I describe here below.
So let's take a walk about the harbor and see the ships we're gonna sail on.
Merchantman refers to any kind of sailing ship carrying goods. These were mostly brigantines or smaller ships.
This is a merchant patache: two masts, one deck, small, light and fast, halfway between a sloop and a brigantine.
Caribbean pirates used them a lot, because they were easy to come by, capture and arm—as in putting weapons on them, not assemble them.
Spaniards used them to carry goods and as escort vessels in short trips, both in the Caribbean and in Europe.
Brigantines had two masts: mainmast (the tallest mast) and foremast (the one closest to the bow). They could carry about a dozen cannons and up to sixty or seventy men--if they didn't care about comfort. They had only one deck --the hold-- that also accommodated the crew to sleep. The cannons were on the weather deck --the upmost one, in the open.
They were the largest boats pirates used, because they were swift and weatherly --easily sailed and maneuvered .
Have you seen In The Heart Of The Sea? Well, the ship Thor and Spiderman set sail on is a brigantine—ha, bet some of you will check the movie to see the Marvel heroes at sea!
A brigantine like the Sovereing's top speed was about eight knots.
This is how the Sovereign would look like:
Warriors: this is a kind of ship I invented for this story.
They're supposed to be larger than brigantines and smaller than frigates, with three masts, two decks and about two-dozen guns. They're also supposed to be weatherly as brigantines and fast as frigates —twelve knots.
This is how I picture them:
Frigates had three masts --add the mizzenmast behind the mainmast. They carried about thirty guns and the crew was about one-hundred and twenty.
Back in the 1600's most of them had two decks: the hold for supplies and ammo storage, and one more above it --the main deck-- that accommodated most of the cannons and the crew to sleep.
Larger frigates carried up to forty guns and two-hundred men, and they had one extra deck solely for artillery between the hold and the main deck.
Tall sides and masts, slender lines, they were strong, swift, weatherly and definitely classy.
Have you seen Master & Commander? Well, the Surprise is a 28-gun frigate.
By the time that movie is set, in the early 1800's, 28-gun ships like the Surprise were sixth-rate frigates --the smallest ones.
But in the Legacy universe, set 130 years earlier, those frigates were the queens of warships.
Galleons were floating fortresses. Tall sides, broad decks. The weather deck was built in three different levels, to make it easier for defending soldiers to shoot from the forecastle and the quarterdeck against enemies boarding them by the waist --the most accesible point .
They could carry up to three-hundred men and a hundred cannons, with two or even three decks solely for artillery. The largest ones even had a fourth mast behind the mizzenmast, because you needed to pack a lot of wind in a lot of sails to move such a bulk.
If you want to get a better idea of them, you can make this comparison to animals:
galleon = elephant
frigate = lion
brigantine = hyena
This picture helps you see the sizes of a brigantine and a frigate compared: