CHASTENED BUT UNDETERRED by the mixed results of his last expedition, Roger of Lauria settled upon an even more aggressive naval strategy the following year to bring Sicily to heel. Subduing the island clearly depended upon extending the Angevin power base beyond Catania and the Val di Noto; and the most efficient means of doing that was to impose naval supremacy on Sicily's shores through the vigorous use of the Angevin fleet – especially since the Sicilians no longer possessed a fleet to oppose it. Accordingly, Roger first returned to Naples in order to acquire more supplies to replenish Angevin strongholds on the eastern end of the island and to procure more ships for the fleet. When he sailed back to Catania in the spring of 1301 having achieved his purpose, the admiral shared his strategy with the duke: they would divide the armada into two squadrons with Roger leading one to subjugate the northern shores while Robert took the other to suppress the southern littoral (Map 6).

The plan's implementation, of course, turned out to be much more problematic than its conception. Unsurprisingly, a pronounced dichotomy in seamanship and judgment dictated that Robert would fare far worse than Roger. The former chose to begin his cruise by assailing Syracuse, despite the fact that, two years before, the city had so stubbornly resisted James II of Aragon that the king had been compelled to abandon his first effort to conquer the island altogether, having achieved little. Predictably, the Syracusans summarily dismissed their assailants on this occasion as well, prompting the Angevins to move on to Scicli (just south of Ragusa), which also rebuffed them. In July, Robert's fleet found itself sailing by Scoglitti (a few miles up the coast towards Gela), when a violent storm struck it from the southwest. Gale force winds drove many of the ships ashore despite frantic attempts to anchor them. Niccolo Speciale reported that twenty-two galleys broke up on the rocks at Camerina just southeast of Scoglitti near modern-day Marina di Ragusa. The duke and the rest of his fleet would have suffered a similar fate, had not the captain of his flagship decided to run before the wind instead of fighting it.