What prevents a captain from pulling their ship out of the water before it sinks?
The rules!!! By rule design, in order to take your ship off the water, a captain must start a 5-minute timer. During that 5-minute period, the ship cannot fire on any other ship, but it may be fired upon. When the timer expires, the captain can touch the ship and remove it from the water. Generally, experienced captains determine when their ship has suffered too much damage and begin their timers early enough to prevent the ultimate disaster: a sink. On numerous occasions, ships have sunk a few seconds before the timer has expired.
