New Large Project

Over the last few months my Dad and I have been discussing running a Napoleonic era ship battle at one of the conventions in 2010. With the launch of the Trafalgar rules from GW earlier this year this really rekindled my interest in the period.
We have decided to do a small squadron vs. squadron battle, 5 ships to each side set about 1812.
After much discussion about miniatures it was decided to use 1/1200 Langton minis for most, if not all of the ships. (http://www.rodlangton.com/index.html)
Over the years we have used have used GHQ, Navwar and Valiant minis for different games.
After acquiring the first of the Langton minis I am amazed at the level of detail and quality of the castings. The parts had very little flash and the few that did, some of them had been deflashed by hand before being shipped. Langton offers both cast sails and sails in etched brass. after looking at both and discussing durability in a convention setting, we decided to go with the cast sails.
The picture is of the first of the British frigates, the 32 gun HMS Aeolus, after initial assembly and priming.
Planning for this event has also driven a review of the rules available.
Trafalgar is the newest, but having read it repeatedly and played it a few times, I have decided not to use them. They are difficult to teach new players and do not convey the feeling I expect in a sailing ship game.
Wooden Ships and Iron Men, the classic from Avalon Hill, but this is hex based and is targeted more for large ship engagements.
This left us with Don't Give Up the Ship (DGUTS). The classic from TSR. This is an excellent rule set that gives a good feel for the period, but is very complicated (I always needed a calculator to play).
This leaves the problem of a rule set. I have decided to to see what can be done to simplify DGUTS and add some of the features from some of the other rules. We will see how this goes.