Interesting. There's an old AD&D 2e "blue book" with that title: Of Ships and the Sea
Depends on the situation. If it's just ship-v-ship with nothing else interfering a 1-minute round is probably still in fact too slow, particularly if the ships have to maneuver between each attack. If it's ship-v-ship with combat also going on aboard one or more ships (but contained within each ship) then you can overlay one on the other by having the ship-v-ship stuff happen once every 10 or 20 or whatever rounds of melee combat.That would render it impossible to easily mix ship-combat with personal combat. I wouldn't be in favor.
Unless I'm missing something, owning a ship is a massive money sink that often takes you away from your own objectives. It's basically impossible for it to actually profit you over the course of a year, and instead of getting to do adventures based around sailing your ship to interesting places, you're burning money probably stuck rescuing your ship over and over again. If you want a campaign based around constantly saving your own ship then this system is for you!
Not to defend the other quibbles, but they are thinking of these:And if they're thinking of something else other than a zeppelin-type vessel they're using the wrong term, as that's what "airship" usually refers to.
Not to defend the other quibbles, but they are thinking of these:
http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Elemental_Airship
Which have been around for three editions now.