Captured Hoche could inspire Roman engineers but not be replicated

Once the Romans captured Hoche, what could they do with the ship and what could they learn?

They could study it and advance engineering ideas, but without operators, modern metallurgy, and industrial tooling they could not replicate the ship or its machinery directly.

What Roman engineers could learn would depend on what they saw working and whether anyone survived to explain it. One objection is that a captured ship with no operators might leave its boilers and machinery unintelligible; the alternative is that experimentation could reveal how heat produces motion. Roman engineers and mathematicians could use those observations to develop new ideas. Vitruvius provides an example of the engineering tradition already available to them. Reproducing Hoche's metals and engines would remain beyond their capabilities, even if the ship inspired useful advances in theory.