Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Walkthrough Part 16 – Sequence 3: “Proper Defenses”
Optional Objectives:
Use one broadside to sink 2 ships
Use heavy shot to sink 2 ships
Head over to Salt Lagoon from Cat Island. On the Northeastern beach you will find more Pirates that Edward can talk to to continue learning more about the world. There you will find James Kidd and Ed Thatch. They want to set up some proper defense to the Brotherhood of pirates growing in Nassau. Ed suggests that you hunt down and capture a Spanish Galleon: the “El Arca Del Maestro”.
Head into the search area and look for the biggest ship in the region. This is your target. Once you have her in sight you need to keep your distance. Mark it with your spyglass to see the distance between the Maestro and the Jackdaw. You want to keep around 400-500 meters away from her. This will ensure your safety. It will be on the fringe of losing the ship so be careful about it. Once again, you can easily speed through the detection zones of the other ships for now. Just keep at it and do not stop. Speed up and slow down as needed to keep within the range.
When you pass the island on the left then Charles Vane's fleet will appear and attack the Maestro. This is your opportunity to attack her and bring her into your fleet. The Man O War has mortars so pay attention to the tutorial. Always be on the lookout for the marked circles on the sea. Yellow denotes incoming fire while red means the shot is landing. The good news is you do not need to defeat the ship in battle, all you need to do is survive a number of barrages from the mortar. Just watch where the circles are on the water and keep after her. It takes some fine sailing and maneuvering but it can be done without too much trouble after that.
Getting the optional objectives here can be tricky. Using Heavy shot means just firing the broadsides without aiming. This is the easy one. The hard one is sinking 2 ships with a single broadside. Even with the first upgrade, it takes at least 2 to sink ships. Use Heavy shot and swivels to weaken then, if not a broadside then take them down. If you have taken down 5 of the 8 ships, then it is recommended to reset to the last checkpoint. This will help ensure that you can get the objectives.
When the battle is done, you will be heading onto land under cover of night to ensure that you can slip in with the leader, Du Casse recognizing the Jackdaw from Edward's time in Havana. Time to move onto the next memory.