1722
Cape Lopez, first action
The setting
Off Cape Lopez, Gabon (approx. 0.62 S, 8.70 E - approximate to the engagement area, sufficient for the map layer, not for the site)
terrain_class `open_sea`. No shoal, no gate, nothing to run into. draft_gate = 0. scale_type `nominal`.
Reveal the outcome
Recorded sideRoberts's consort - Ranger (James Skyrme)
Recorded resultdefeat
Royal Navy victory; Ranger defeated and the vessel taken, five days before the main action.
How the atlas explains it
Ogle feigned flight. Ranger gave chase, was drawn out of sight of the flagship, and was taken. The pirate consort was destroyed by its own aggression, five days before the main action - the same aggression that made reputation a working substitute for force in gated water was fatal in water where the pursuer's hull was not excluded.
What followed
This row is the standing objection to the volume's own draft thesis and is recorded as such. If Cape Lopez I counts as an open-sea case, the claim that pirate survival is conditional on draft_gate = 1 is already weakened, because Ogle had to FEIGN to bring an open-sea engagement about at all - the pirate did not decline the open-sea action, he pursued into it. The section's instruction is explicit: argue this out before registering the claim, not after.