My career as a gamer on the high seas began with Milton Bradley's American Heritage Broadside game. The British fleet had to sail past defending forts and into an American harbor against a weaker fleet and sink the merchant ships at anchor. Fun game for kids, and featured a very nice little booklet on early American navy. Various boardgames on the era simply had no visual appeal, even if they were closer to the mark. When my son was young, we had a fleet of 32 Lego ships, complete with larger musters of redcoat soldiers, bluecoats, and even black coats (Cap'n Redbeard with his infirmatives removed and given shakos). Plus a few zillion pirates. And yes, I had a red beard (let me report that alas, the red part was the first to go gray) - if you ever played Bard's Tale III, the penultimate villain was called Redbeard - that was me. So, when the red went gray, my online handle went from Redbeard to Corsair.

Gaming: done it all. Ran a Diplomacy zine, played miniatures, still have my first edition, brown box D&D, documented the first known play of a Euro game in the US (let me stress "known"), playtested many of the early Magic: the gathering releases, and worked on any number of computer games.

Sails of Glory is simply a return to me of the promise of that Broadsides game of my youth (and yes, also Dogfight/Wings of Glory).