Nelson & His World

They happened to show 'Master and Commander' on TV the other night. Of course, I have the DVD, but dipping into the movie anyway, I happened uplon the scene where Jack rigs up a dummy ship with lights to make the Acheron think she was following Surprise, while Aubrey then made a loop of 100 sea miles and came up behind her.

All this seems pretty unlikely considering that Acheron was very fast, and a raft made of barrels etc would hardly have made any speed, and therefore would have been caught up with very quickly, and the ruse detected.

Presumably this incident (like most of O'Bryan's stories) is based on the truth. Does anyone know more about the subject and whether this strategem could actually work?

I suspect that it was based on an episode in Cochrane's career (who else!). According to his account in "The Autobiography of a Seaman", whilst in command of the sloop Speedy, he was chased by a large Spanish frigate ...

"..towards evening we observed a large frigate in chase of us. As she did not answer the private signal, it was evident that the stranger was one of our Spanish friends on the look out. To cope with a vessel of her size and armament would have been folly, so we made all sail away from her, but she gave instant chase, and evidently gained upon us. To add to our emabarrassment, the Speedy sprung her maintopgallant yard and lost ground fishing it.
At daylight the following morning the strange frigate was still in chase, although by crowding all sail during the night we had gained a little on her; but during the day she recovered her advantage, the more so as the breeze freshening, we were compelled to take in our royals, whilst she was carrying on with everything set.
After dark we lowered a tub overboard with a light in it, and altering our course, we evaded her..."