Why were the Romans so successful at Naval Combat in the First Punic War?

Naval combat was never a huge part of the Roman war machine but there success with it serves to perfectly illustrate the main strength of the Roman Army, Innovation. Rome didnt have a standing navy until after  the First Punic war against Carthage in 264 BC which meant they had to build a fleet from scratch large enough to defeat the pre eminent naval power in the world at that time. By capturing a Carthaginian Quinquireme which according to Polybius was washed up in a storm (more likely Stolen by the Romans according to Verrus) the Romans were able to reverse engineer it and create a fleet of 300 ships in 3 months capable of matching the carthaginian fleet in numbers. This shows the power of the Roman war machine in combination with their engineering skill and its ability to mass produce these ships in such a short amount of time, enabling them to field a force that by rights should have taken years to create when compared to comparative building speeds of the time. The quinquireme was also chosen by Rome out of its pragmatism. Whilst they didnt have the speed and manouverability of the smaller Triremes or Ramming power of the larger Hexaremes the Quinquireme was the parfect compromise of the two being fast yet powerful as well as being far easier to man than a larger ship.  Romes innovation didnt stop there as they not only replicated these ships but altered them to fit their own battle strategies. Instead of the 5 rows of oars the Carthaginian quinquiremes had the Romans made ships with 3 rows of oars. This meant Rome needed only 180 skilled rowers out of 300 to man a ship at full effieicieny wheras the carthaginians needed the full 300 rowers to be skilled. This is because men on two of the levels of the Roman ships could simply copy the motions of the their fellow rowers instead of rowing independantly. This design also made the Roman ships smaller and wider at the expense of speed. Rome wasnt skilled enough to pull off intricate naval manouveres at the begining of the war and they knew this so a sacrifice in speed in order for a wider deck capable of holding 120 marines as opposed to 20 was a perfect trade off for them. 

Romes strangth was in its infantry as shown by the ship design holding a contingent of marines 6 times larger than the Carthaginians. These men were also not the lightly armored carthaginian skirmishers but fully armed and armoured Roman legoinaires far more adept at close combat that their counterparts. The Romans where not sailors and couldnt hope to match the Carthaginians whose naval pedigree went back to the time of Phoenicia and whose naval skill and victories over Athens, Syracuse and Macedonia where practically legend. Rome couldnt beat them when it came to complex manouvers such as the Periplous and Diekplous so they invented away to completely neutralise the Carthaginian navy. The Corvus was a 21 ft Bride with a 4 ft spike attatched to it that was hoisted by pulleys and used as a boarding platform. When an enemy ship came in range the bridge would be dropped on its deck, effectively immobilising the enemy ship preventing any ramming attacks or escape. The Romans could then ram the ship at their leisure or more economically storm the ship with their superior marines and capture it for the Roman navy. The Corvus stopped the Carthaginians from fighting the way they had been for centuries. Frontal assaults against the Roman navy was now suicide and the wide swining platform of the Corvus meant flanking was almost impossible. The Romans in this way performed so well at sea in the First Punic war and in later wars due to their ability to adapt to any circumstance and create a counter to whatever the enemy were using. By using tactics and weaponry never seen before the Romans won at sea through innovation and suprise.