Grapple

A grapple is one of several tokens that may be placed during the the battle navigation portion of a sea battle. It is similar to a gun token, which is used to fire a loaded cannon, in that a grapple may be thrown off either the left or the right side of the ship. Unlike the gun token, however, the grapple can only be used on one side for each movement phase. Furthermore, if a grapple token is placed for one phase during a turn, gun tokens may not be placed on either side during that phase. If an enemy ship is in the square adjacent to the side of the ship that the grapple is thrown off of, it is considered "grappled". When this happens, the swordfighting or rumble portion of the sea battle begins.

Placing a grapple does not affect the status bar above a ship during a sea battle, in contrast to movement tokens and gun tokens. Thus, a ship can have four grapples placed, and as long as it is not moving or firing during that turn, appear as though it is taking no action that turn. For example, even if a brigand appears to have run out of moves, they may still have placed up to four grapple tokens. Note also that throwing a grapple does not use any of the ship's resources.

The grapple tokens are not available to navigators during blockades, flotillas, and Sea Monster Hunts, as players are not allowed to board other ships at these locations.

Historical notes
Prior to, grapples did not exist. The swordfight or rumble began when both ships occupied the same square on the battle navigation board. (There was no such thing as ramming at this time.)