Ships and Foreign Markets

Board traders, load goods, unload ships at Great Britain, the United States and the West Indies, and build your own ships.

The canal

The Lachine Canal at the bottom of the board has a destination section for each foreign market: GB (Great Britain), US (United States) and WI (West Indies). Ships wait there until they leave. To its left are the face-down stacks of neutral schooners and canallers, and the scheduled ships section for ships arriving at the next administration phase.

A ship carries one type of good, set by the foreign trade token placed beside it. Anyone may load goods on any ship, but you may only board a trader on a neutral ship (player ships arrive with their owner’s trader on board).

A ship leaves the canal and is unloaded when it is full of goods (the trader does not count), when it is pushed out of its section by an arriving ship, or at final scoring.

Board a trader

Only in McCord or St. Ann.

1. Pay £1.
2. Place one of your traders on the empty trader space of any neutral ship.

You have 12 traders; when they are all placed you cannot take this action any more. No popularity.

Ship goods

Only in St. Gabriel, Les Bassins or Wellington.

1. Pay £1.
2. Load up to 2 goods from your company board, 1 each on 2 different ships in any destination sections. They may be neutral ships, your own, or opponents’ ships.
3. On an empty ship, load a good that its market wants and take that good’s foreign trade token from the foreign markets board to place beside the ship. On a ship already carrying goods, load only its type.
4. Each good you load on a ship an opponent built gives that opponent 1 .

No popularity. Then unload any ship you filled, in the order you choose.

The foreign markets

Market	Basic goods (1 each)	Processed goods	Trade levels	Trader bonus
GB	grain, iron	flour	2 → 2 → 2 → 3	£1 or 1
US	coal, brick	flour, beer (+2)	2 → 3 → 3 → 4	£1 or 3
WI	wood, brick	beer, machine (+1)	3 → 3 → 4 → 6	£1 or 2

A processed good scores your trade level in that market, plus the extra shown for some goods. Every player starts on the first space of each trade level track; each of your traders that arrives moves you one space up.

Unloading a ship

1. Trader: move it to the market’s export agency. The first trader in each export agency gives its owner 2 . Each arriving trader raises its owner’s trade level there by 1 and takes the trader bonus (£1 or the goods shown). Traders stay for the rest of the game and score 1 in each administration phase.
2. Goods: every player scores their own goods markers on the ship: 1 per basic good; their trade level (plus any bonus) per processed good.
3. Players take back their goods markers. Put the foreign trade token back on the market and remove the ship from the game.

No popularity for unloading.

Your own ships

After a Shipyard is built, anyone may produce in it to launch one of their own ships (some city cards do the same). Each player has 3 double-sided ship tokens, one for each market (GB, US, WI), so at most 3 ships a game.

1. Produce at the Shipyard: £1 and 1 (basic side) launches a schooner; £1 and 1 (upgraded side) launches a canaller. Before 1855, an upgraded Shipyard still launches only a schooner.
2. Place your ship on the top space of the destination section of your choice, pushing ships already there down, and put one of your traders on it (none if all 12 are used).
3. You may choose its type of good now by placing a free foreign trade token beside it; otherwise the first player to load it chooses.

Each destination can take only one of your ships. Like every ship, it leaves the game once unloaded.