Maintanence schedules as rewards for espionage

I hope people will pardon, again, a shorter post this evening. My notes on the Great Chinese Gold Sponge are on my desk at work, following a moment of foolishness. Strictly speaking, the rules say I should average 500 words a night, and so far, I have had two posts, and they total over 3000 words, so I could just spout banalities for the next few days and still obey my rules…but let us move on.

Tonight I watched the new Bond film. I liked it a great deal. It has me thinking, now, what forms of espionage would be effective in the environment of medieval trade. We consider this in the book in some depth, in the sense that we allow you to purchase supporters who are agents that supply information concerning your rivals, but what, really, do they tell you? We provide a few story hooks. I note also that remittance shipments are meant to have you thinking about the advisability of buying a parrot, raising the black flag, and slitting throats.

That being said, what else can you know, about the business affairs of others, that is of value? Ships usually make port during the winter to repair. Let's look at maintenance schedules. These look boring, but really, if you spin them the right way, they are a great prize for a character.

Sabotage: A limited number of sites that can perform repairs. This means that if you have any sort of interest in sabotage, it is possible to try to get an agent into a dockyard many months before the target enters for refit.

Scalping workers: Knowing the maintenance schedule also means you know when the crew is being paid off. Many merchants assume they will be able to just buy their crew back when the weather improves. If you were sufficiently deep pocketed, and if your rival paid off several crews at once in different ports you could, if you knew in advance, soak up their skilled crews and force them to hire green crews.

Damage noted: To speed repairs, clients often tell dockyards what is likely to be necessary. This allows the dockyard to store up the material needed for the repair, before the ship arrives in dock. If you know the dockyard is stocking up on braces that are shaped to fit the ship's port bow, then you might assume that the ship was damaged in the port bow. This is useful for three reasons:

1. If you hear any rumours of naval engagements in which as ship was damaged in the port bow, you can identify the movements of your rivals.
2. If you have shipboard artillery, knowing the damaged parts of the enemy ship can allow you to do far greater damage.
3. Damaged ships do not sail as sweetly. This means you can predict that the ship will sail better or worse at various approaches to the wind. This makes chasing down the vessel far easier.

Specialised fit outs: If the ship is being refitted with stalls, you know the rival are getting into cattle. If the ship is refitted with a hatch on the side, you know they are carrying livestock, or horses for a military campaign. If they have rich trappings placed in one cabin, they have a special passenger.

Secret spaces: Many ships have small spaces hidden in them that allow crews to stash documents or small pieces of valuable cargo, like gemstones, if boarded. An agent of sufficient skill in shipbuilding, with advance notice of where the ship will winter, could establish cover and then find ways to inspect the ship, discovering these hiding spaces. It might even be possible to create a new space, of which only the player character's agents are aware, so that the rival ship acted as a mule for risky cargoes.