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In the War of 1812 battle between the USS Chesapeake and HMS Shannon, the Shannon outgunned the Chesapeake decisively, then closed to board the enemy ship. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued before the USS Chesapeake was taken.
Reading the account made me wonder: if the crew of the Chesapeake had won the hand-to-hand combat, the boarding attempt could easily have backfired. After all, the two ships were close enough that the Americans could've boarded the Shannon instead.
Has such an attempt to board ever backfired? If not, why not? I'm guessing that it can't be that "if one side attempts to board they have already won the fight", because if that's the case, the loser would surrender.
The most famous example of this would be Blackbeard's defeat. The Wikipedia article is quite thorough, so I'll focus on the last battle. The local governor organized a pirate hunt to capture or kill Blackbeard after he started pirating again (Blackbeard was pardoned shortly before).
Two sloops found Blackbeard's vessel anchored at Ocracoke island. The whole situation was quite fortuitous for the hunters. Blackbeard didn't post a sentry, so didn't notice the enemy until they engaged and more than half his crew was at Bath (a town on the mainland, around 120km from the island).
The three vessels engaged in combat next morning. The account of what happened in the naval battle is a bit muddied. A broadside from Blackbeard's vessel heavily damaged and killed nearly 20 men on Maynard's ship and completely disabled its compatriot. Meanwhile Blackbeard ran aground on a sandbank, also taking heavy damage, it's unclear whether damage done by the British sloops caused this. Blackbeard then decided to board Maynard's vessel. Maynard kept most of his men below deck, so Blackbeard was lulled into a false sense of security seeing the many dead on deck and not expecting to see much resistance. After boarding, the pirates were surprised by Maynards men storming from below deck and while the pirates were able to inflict quite a few casualties, they were outnumbered. Eventually Blackbeard was surrounded and cut down after which the remaining pirates surrendered.
Perhaps the stories of boarding raids going wrong isn't retold often. A story of 'this little ship tried to board us, but we took it' isn't very compelling.
The opposing story is very compelling. The capture of the Serapis by John Paul Jones is still famous. And Lord Thomas Cochrane's taking of the El Gamo is legendary. That story was used in O'Brians Master and Commander series and, IMO, was toned down. The true story is too much for a work of fiction.
