The first experience of the new force was not encouraging. A squadron of seventeen ships under one of the Consuls for the year, a Scipio, great-uncle of a famous man of whom I shall have to speak hereafter, was shut up in the harbour of Lipara, and had to surrender. The other Consul was put in command of the fleet and at once set about suiting it better to the actual conditions of warfare. He had the sagacity to see that there was more in seamanship than could be acquired by a landsman in a few weeks, and the object that he set before himself was that seamanship should not be allowed to count for more than could possibly be helped. To put the matter shortly, a battle on sea was to be made as like to a battle on land as could be managed. He adopted accordingly the suggestion of an ingenious inventor that the ships should be fitted with boarding-machines, or "crows" (_corvi_), as they afterwards came to be called. The actual "crow" was a gangway, four feet wide and thirty-six feet long, with a wooden railing on either side, about the height of a man's knee. This construction was fastened to a pole, some twenty-four feet high, that was placed near the bowsprit. It was fitted with pulleys and ropes so that it could be dropped at pleasure in any direction that might be convenient. When it was dropped to the deck of a hostile ship it acted as a grappling-iron, for it was fitted with a heavy spike which ran into the timber. If the two ships came together side by side the boarders could scramble over the bulwarks, and the chief use of the machine was for grappling. If they met prow to prow the gangway, which was broad enough for two men to pass over it abreast, became very useful.