Sailing checks with multiple methods of propulsion

I'm planning on GMing Skull & Shackles and I've been working with my players to make sure we all have a good grasp of how the rules are going to work going into this thing, and one of the questions they asked (which I don't have a good answer for, nor do I see addressed in the provided rules), is how to manage sailing checks for a boat that's using multiple methods of propulsion.

A few ideas occurred, such as:

• Making each skill check independently and failure on one being failure on the whole thing.
  
• Making each skill check independently and failure on one indicating some sort of issue related to the failed skill.
  
• Making each skill check independently, and success on one giving a +2 bonus to the other.
  
• Making a single skill check at the highest skill bonus for all propulsion methods involved.
  
• Making a single skill check at the lowest skill bonus for all propulsion methods involved (this is the one I suggested).
  
• Making both skill checks, and if one succeeds, both do.

I was wondering if anyone else had run into this problem, and if so, how they dealt with it. My case may be particularly complicated by the fact that two different characters are focusing on the oarsmen and the sails (though, in theory, it seems like this should work). Does anyone know of any official rulings for sailing checks involving propulsion methods with different skills? How did your house rules, if any, address it?

Not really sure its relevent in this AP to be honest unless the players manage to find/get a galley?

The main ships and the one the players have is a sail ship with no oars. Might be why its never been addressed here.

Realisticly, it's impossible to use both oars and sails. The propulsion caused by the sails would snap the oars.

However, if you ignore that (and why not, this being not even close to a simulation of realistic sailing at all anyway), I'd say that only the succeding checks gave any bonus.

If a ship is propelled by both oars and sails, the ship proparbly gains a bonus for being under both sets of propulsion, and has a listed speed if only one or the other is active. So I would say that if both checks succeeded, the ship would have the ship listed for having both propulsions. If only one check succeeded, the ship would only have the speed listed under the succeding method, the other being uncoordinated and faulty executed.

Bz Ali is almost correct, unless for very low winds with a very light ship, where you could row to speed up the already low ship speed if running before the wind. I mean talking about winds of beaufort 3 and less, so almost a dead calm for most sizable pirate vessels. Which basically would be a check for rowing, slightly eased by gaining some propulsion from windspeed.

Anything else is just stupid and infeasible "Hollywood Daydreams".

Actually, if having raised sails and being rowed turning would mean real trouble, especially if the ship leans over sideways from the sails' pressure and in that way flooding the rowlocks...and thereby capsizing and sinking the ship. this might be a very humbling experience for the characters

If you have an unorthodox means of propulsion (like being pulled by whales or an elemental-fed thruster) you can basically waive any sense of realism anyway.

I was always under the impression that under most circumstances that sails were not reliable enough to generate sufficient speed to ram other ships. There speed was better over the distance against galleys because the wind does not tire but in battle under short periods galleys could get up enough speed to do some real damage provided they have a ram. This method would be likely obsolete considering that the historical analog of the AP is age of sail not ancient Greece.

I was always under the impression that under most circumstances that sails were not reliable enough to generate sufficient speed to ram other ships. There speed was better over the distance against galleys because the wind does not tire but in battle under short periods galleys could get up enough speed to do some real damage provided they have a ram. This method would be likely obsolete considering that the historical analog of the AP is age of sail not ancient Greece.

Sailing speed actually is higher than rowing speed. No galey I heard off could go to speeds of 12+ knots, which a good man-o-war could do. Both both types of vessel are limited through hydrodanamics according to the length of waterline anyways - no gliding/surfing effects on either.

But galleys could turn much faster and move at acute angles to the wind which sailing ships could not. And galleys were used as vessels up to the Napoleonic wars, the last large galley battle occuring at Lepanto in the 16th century. Xebecs etc had the means etc. to row as well in calms.
But rowed craft from the renaissance onward, with the advent of gunpowder artillery, replaced the ram with a huge calibre gun along the midship axis, which did similar damage, at a much safer range, without too much danger of the vessel foundering because a ram got stuck in a stricken vessel. Check on gunboats, armed galleys, and venetian galeasses

Nevermind the Mediterranean Sea being (perhaps the ultimate stomping ground of galleys) very calm and low-wind in the summer months so rowing was a good alternative in an emergency.

Plus, ramming with raised masts, an extended bowsprite and all the rigging up being very dangerous for the rigging (which if the vessel was brought to a dead stop could/would simply topple forward ). Soooo real danger there for the ramming ship as well.