(Let it be noted that the Carolina went unmolested through the entire battle, and did nothing noteworthy except bring home gold. Quite a bit of gold, actually; the first coin she found was a seven. That's all there is to say about the Carolina.)
All three of the Cadet-Captain's fighting ships converged on Lora's five-master. The congested waters between islands became even more crowded as four big ships tried to get lines of fire on each other. The Sioux and the Eagan could each bring only one cannon to bear, and they landed one hit each. Then Thomas Jefferson, acting as his own Secretary of War, supplied three more hits to leave Le Gaule mastless. Mike was considering towing her home at this time, more for the ransom for the Stag of Tortuga than for any desire to use the ship.
Lora was not defenseless, though. El Relampago was able to fire all her cannons at the murky form of the Nautilus below the surface. But two of them missed, and the third did no harm to the submarine's tough iron hull. The Raven and the Cumberland both found gold and raced home with it; there were too many angry fighting ships in the area to risk losing a single doubloon. The Darkhawk thought about landing at that center island, but in spite of Mike's repeatedly urging her to do so, she decided against it.
Richard entered the action at this time, chuckling, "What a beautiful brawl!" The Nautilus, running silent and deep, rammed the Relampago and tumbled her foremast over the side. The Hrothgar added her cannons to the action, but her marksmanship was poor; it took all six of her shots to land two hits and take Lora's anti-submarine ship out of the action. Rattlesnake and Neptune's Hoard both took advantage of the other players' distraction to grab some gold from nearby wild islands.
Now, Mike did divide his fleet. The Eagan closed in on the Nautilus, the Sioux sheered off to chase down the Rattlesnake, and the TJ took on the Darkhawk and the Hrothgar at the same time. The Eagan had some success, crushing the tail of Richard's submarine. But before her crew could reload, or even gloat, they found themselves under fire from the other direction; the Darkhawk was sniping at them. Lora's gunners got one of Mike's masts. The damaged Nautilus got another with a ram, and the Hrothgar finished her off, shooting three for six. "Thanks for helping me sink her," said the Dread Pirate to the Dangerous Lady. Didn't she realize that, if the Eagan didn't stop Richard's sub, he'd have everyone at his mercy? But that's why we call her dangerous; she has a history of backstabbing other players who might have helped her. One sub-hunting ship was now sunk and the other was derelict. Could anything stop the Nautilus?
The answer was, "Yes, her own timid admiral could stop her." The Nautilus had both Mike's and Lora's fleets at her mercy. Driving one or both of them back to their home ports would have been easy. But instead, the submarine turned for home and repairs. (We forgot the rule about how Mercenary ships can't dock at a home island. We always thought that was a stupid rule anyway.) This gave Mike and Lora some breathing room, which they used to pound on each other.
The Jefferson's first move was to board the Darkhawk from a distance with small boats. This backfired badly; the American boarders were repulsed, and Mike lost his Helmsman in the process. His gunners aimed to take out the Hrothgar, whose bad luck might turn good at any moment. The Jefferson left the longship derelict, and used one cannon to knock a piece off the Darkhawk as well. That ship fired back and shot away one of the TJ's masts. The Hrothgar tried to creep away on oar power, but Mike put a quick stop to that, and sank the Darkhawk at the same time with some good shooting.
Meanwhile, the Sioux had made a very good showing for herself. She caught the Rattlesnake just as the latter finished loading, and scored three hits with three shots. Nothing was left of the Rattlesnake but some flotsam on the surface, and some treasure that Mike and Richard divided between them. Richard made his infamous growling noise to show his displeasure. Then the Sioux cut around the fantail of the submerged Nautilus and crossed the bows of the Neptune's Hoard. Again she shot three for three, and the Hoard was down to one mast. Richard growled again.
He decided he'd had enough of that. His submarine bobbed to the surface and ran out her guns, aided by the Hoard's last cannon. Now it was Richard's turn to shoot three for three. The Hoard wasted no time in running a towing hawser to the Sioux and began dragging her home. That annoying ship would get repaired, and would take the place of the Hrothgar in his fleet.
Mike now owned the center of the map. The Jefferson contemplated chasing the Hoard and recovering the Sioux, but without her Helmsman, there was no chance of catching them. "Hmmm," thought her captain out loud. "There's a lot of treasure on that center island, and I've got three cargo spaces free. It seems a shame to waste them..." Suiting action to words, Jefferson shifted from Secretary of War to Secretary of the Treasury; she claimed the three best coins on the island (two sixes and a four), and built the Thompson's Island fort to guard the rest.
Lora was down to two small ships at this point, but they were both doing what they could. The Raven set herself the goal of towing the Relampago home (aided by a promise from Mike to let her do so, since the Relampago was the only thing standing between the Nautilus and everything else on the board). The Cumberland snarfed up some more gold, and built the Paradis de la Mer fort to cover Le Gaule. Mike was not about to mess with that fort. His dreams of towing the big Frenchman home were dashed, so he let the Thompson's Island gunners take some target practice against the motionless hulk. It took only one hit to send her to the bottom.
At this point, nearly all the gold was claimed, and as it was getting late, the battle was deemed over. Mike ran away with the gold score, thanks to all the high-value coins he found. The goodies he'd stolen from Richard wouldn't have affected the winner, but they would have put Richard in second place instead of third.
If the battle had gone on longer, there's no question who would have won. Richard had his submarine, and he had both the Neptune's Hoard and the captured USS Sioux to sweep the Relampago aside and leave the Nautilus untouchable. The sub could have done even more damage if Richard had used her more aggressively. The Darkhawk II did nothing as a gold ship, but by defeating Mike's bigger TJ in a boarding action, she saved Richard's fleet from even more destruction. The Thomas Jefferson lived up to her promise as a gunship (unlike Le Gaule, which sank without firing a shot), and earned battle honors for sinking the Darkhawk and Hrothgar, doing most of the damage to Le Gaule, and for bringing home enough gold to have won the day all by herself. USS Sioux would also have won battle honors for 100% marksmanship and for sinking a laden gold ship, but she ended the battle in enemy hands, so she doesn't qualify.