Requesting permission to come aboard, Sir!
Thanks for adding me to your community! I have been scanning through the various sections of the web page and I am impressed by the depth and amount of information you have available on the site.
I am a landlubber from Boise, Idaho who grew up paddling around on mountain lakes and I've been rafting on some of the best white water in the US. I've even swam through several Class V rapids as part of a swift water rescue course. If you count cruise ships, I've been to sea several times including a couple of trips in the Caribbean, one along the west coast of Mexico and another to Alaska through the inland passage. One of the highlights of my life has been to do the tour on the U.S.S. Constitution in Boston Harbor. It was awesome to walk her famous decks although I have to admit that they must have been shorter men back in those days, as I constantly hit my head on the beams above the gun deck! And those beds in the officers' berths were so short!
I am new to Sails of Glory, having picked up the basic game with 4 ships about 10 days ago. I have since added the Constitution and the Montagne to my fleet. I have been interested in the Age of Sail since the days of my youth when I got Milton Bradley's "Broadsides" for a birthday present. I have spent many enjoyable hours with Avalon Hill's "Wooden Ships & Iron Men". I love the rich detail in "Sails of Glory" that I've seen in the rule book thus far and I'm excited to get playing. I have a couple of friends who participated in the Kickstarter and I'm working with them to show me the basics at our local game store.
If I had been living during the Napoleonic Wars, I likely wouldn't have been a sailor as my ancestry is German with my father's side coming from the Wurttemburg area and my mother's side from Pomerania along the Baltic Coast in what was Prussia, but is now Poland. Knowing my luck, I would have been one of the 15,000 troops the Kingdom of Wurttemburg was required to raise for Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812: only 150 survived the war to come home! Actually, my direct ancestors had already left Germany under Catherine the Great's emigration offer to finance Germans to settle in her newly won lands along the Black Sea in southern Russia (now the Ukraine). My folks were already in Russia by 1811, but it is highly likely that some of their people who stayed behind in Germany wound up on that fateful journey.
Thanks again for letting me join your group!
Dick
