Could the fleets at Sluys have fought a running battle?

Would the French have done better in a running fight on open water?

Possibly, but the ships may not have been maneuverable enough to close and sustain a running fleet action.

A viewer asks whether the French would have fared better in a running fight. The fleets may not have been maneuverable enough to bring on that kind of engagement at all. Closing the distance between large groups of cogs and heavily laden invasion ships would itself have been difficult. Sluys was a naval battle of a sort, and later fleet tactics should not be projected backward onto 1340.