dward sailed from the Orwell, embarked in the cog Thomas, and was in sight of the roadstead at Sluys by the afternoon of the following day. What he saw gave him considerable satisfaction, because although the allied Franco-Spanish-Genoese fleets mustered over 400 sail, the ships has been crammed and anchored tightly at the entrance to the Zwin channel, and had therefore sacrificed their advantages of superior seamanship and manoeuvre. That night, the king sent ashore two rising knights of his household, Sir Reginald Cobham and Sir John Chandos who, having made contact with the Flemings, reported that the enemy vessels were ranged in three compact lines and included the great cog Christopher, which the English were extremely eager to recapture. The battle began soon after dawn on the following day, Saturday 24th June 1340.
Edward sent his ships against the enemy line in units of three, two ships crammed with archers and one full of men-of-arms. This gave the English immediate local superiority and the French ships began to fall into their hands with ever-increasing rapidity. The two ships with archers would come alongside, and from the towering castle hose the enemy decks with arrows until the decimated crews could be overwhelmed by a boarding party of men-at-arms, which swarmed on board from the third vessel.
The line of French ships disintegrated, floating about in little knots of ships full of struggling men, the mailed French and Castilian knights being jostled or jumping into the sea as the arrows flayed the decks piled with dead. The battle had been decided within the first two hours, but the ships-to-ship fighting went on all day and well in to the night. The Chirstopher was retaken, renamed and sent back into fight, along with many other vessels. Those of the French or Castilian crews who swam ashore were clubbed to death in the shallows by the waiting Flemings. The fighting finally died down about midnight, with just thirty of the Genoese ships retreating out to sea and escaping the general slaughter.