I don't think that'd be too much of an issue: there're plenty of incendiary options in the Age of Sail, already... I mean, fireships were a thing.
Fireships were used used to drive apart formations and to attack ports. But their effectiveness as a weapon was quite low.
Alchemist fire on the other hand was devastating in naval combat when Byzantium used it. If the knowledge of how to make it had spread instead of going under with them naval warfare would have looked very differently.