Spanish Treasure

Josh and I played a quick game of Close Action tonight, the Spanish Treasure scenario from the original scenario book. Four British frigates have intercepted the Spanish treasure shipment, which is also four frigates, and invite them to surrender; the Spanish decline, and the fight is on. The two squadrons start out parallel and at close range. Despite the fact that both sides have four frigates, the British are better quality and much stronger, at about 180 points vs the Spanish 80. On the other hand, the victory conditions favor the Spanish, who can win by inflicting enough damage on the Brits; they can eke out a draw by having a single ship escape. I played the Spanish, Josh played the Brits.
On turn one, my rear two ships attempted to sandwich the rear Brit ship; unfortunately I guessed wrong about his move and my rear ship collided with him and fouled, giving him a point blank bow rake and essentially dooming my rear ship. My lead division moved upwind to open the range from his two leaders.
On turn two, my lead ship narrowly avoided colliding with his leader; if I'd been going any faster, I would have gone crunch. As it was, I merely sailed into a point blank bow rake, but his fire didn't hurt me all that much. His second ship did collide with mine, losing a mast and fouling. I raked him, doing a little damage; his return fire, a half broadside, was a critical hit, setting my ship on fire. The damage from the destroyed a mast and a hull section, and in moments I found that my best ship had gone from a perfect position to having three of her four crew sections either dead, disorganized, or fighting the fire. My third ship took a stern rake from his third, only a half broadside but still enough to take a mast down; and my fourth was still fouled and took a beating from his fourth. My marine sections were deadly marksmen, but that wasn't enough to turn the fight.
On turn three, my #3 ship went back to help #4, although the real intent was not to stop and fight, but to fire one broadside and then run and try to escape. Unfortunately Josh's third ship turned around and gave chase--it was the obvious thing to do, but I'd hoped he might have sent it to reinforce his two lead ships. Not that they needed reinforcing, with my second ship crippled and my lead ship outgunned by two to one (and being on the short end of a 2:1 duel was my best fight in this battle).
I might have been able to get my #3 ship off the board, technically "escaped", although there's no question the British would have been able to catch it; there's also a possibility that with a few lucky shots, I might have been able to do enough damage points for a win. However, given the hour, I decided to call it a night.