Chapter 81 Pirate’s Favorite – Slurpee Ship
Chapter 81 – Pirate’s Favorite – Slurp Ship
The next morning after the Foster family line arrived in Lakeheart Town, Paul couldn’t wait to lead a group of shipbuilders to Richland Harbor.
As for the details of the business cooperation, it was left to Old Ford and the others to slowly negotiate with Supervisor Christopher.
Queller and the adventurous group of people also accompanied, on the way they talked about the situation in the south.
“Giles is annexing those lords south of Thorn Fortress who disobeyed him, I’m afraid no one will be able to hold on, after all, he’s too powerful.”
Quiller described it so to Paul.
Paul secretly thought: it looks like the war will continue for a long time.
Since Hansel had served in his place, he had given him some news about the royal capital, and it was estimated that the main army of the counter-insurgency would only be able to move south next year, and before that, it would be good for the kingdom’s army to be able to hold the Thorn Fortress.
Another piece of news from Quiller caught his attention – the witch-hunting movement had re-emerged in the south.
“In the first few days before departure, a witch was burned to death in the square.”
Curious, Paul asked, “How do you tell if someone is a witch?”
Quiller rubbed his chin and said, “There’s a ‘magic-detecting stone’ that is said to change color whenever it comes into contact with an object that has traces of magic attached to it.”
Wasn’t that the same kind of stone they’d brought out the first time they’d met Dean Leonard? At that time, they had also mysteriously rubbed the stone on their muskets, but they had also eventually removed themselves from suspicion.
“So if a wizard can disguise himself properly, not cast his magic in front of people, or never carry items with traces of magic, is he safe and sound?”
Quiller shook his head and said, “Not really, most of the time it’s still based on the Inquisitor’s own experience, and there are all sorts of means of judgment.”
That would be a lot of room for maneuvering, and Paul shuddered when he thought of those means of identifying witches in the medieval witch-hunting movement in Europe. He flipped through some of this world’s history books, and there were quite a few wrongful convictions that the Holy See itself had recognized.
He sighed and said, “I wish we lived in an enlightened age.”
It drew the crowd to stare at him.
Meru spoke up and asked, “Why did Lord Graiman say that?”
Paul pondered how to answer; he didn’t want to say anything too radical.
“I think it …… even if the other party is really a sorcerer, as long as he doesn’t break the law and doesn’t do anything to jeopardize others, there’s no need to have to deprive him of his life. Even if he breaks the law, it’s still the same as an ordinary person, depending on the extent of the crime, he can be punished however he wants.”
Quiller shook his head, “Paul, you’re speaking too idealistically, a similar point of view that many people have made. But have you thought about it, if magic really exists and is as evil as the legends say, then sorcerers are perfectly capable of committing crimes without the onlookers being aware of it at all.”
Paul responded, “I’ve heard the saying that when a flood comes, it’s better to reasonably channel it rather than just block it.”
“That’s why I’m inclined to set up an official organization to manage the sorcerers in a unified manner, influencing their moral inclinations and using their abilities to do things that will help the public, as well as monitoring them to see if they’re going to commit crimes, and removing the evil ones among them in time.”
He finally added, “By the way, just like the Adventurer’s Guild, aren’t the adventurers all skilled in their own right?”
Meru smiled like a flower and said towards Paul, “Haha, Earl-sama, this suggestion of yours is really original.”
Scholar Miss Ladi, on the other hand, listened silently without uttering a word.
……
“It’s quite an original ship!”
The shipbuilders from the south gathered around the sailboat model and talked.
Old Benjamin, in particular, had the look and features of the kind of chunky ship in front of him that coincided with all his ideas. Yes, this was the ship he had wanted to build for years.
The other boat, the “Flying Shearer”, although oddly shaped, was built for high speed sailing.
The old shipwright’s eyes were glowing as he kept circling around the model, scrutinizing it from different angles, fearing that he might miss a single detail.
Rubin, the shipyard supervisor, watched with a smile on the side, before he was worried that this group of Cape Bay guys had a high opinion of themselves and looked down on this small shipyard under their control, but now it seems that this worry was completely superfluous.
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!”
Paul uttered to draw the attention of the crowd.
“The models of these two ships were restored by me according to the way they were described in the ancient books of the Bella Empire, the books said that both of these ships were able to cut through the winds and waves and cross the oceans, and the structure should be very mature now, so I think that we can build the real ships directly according to the way they were modeled.”
It’s been used for one or two hundred years in another world, can it not be mature.
Old Benjamin was pained, “I didn’t realize that people in ancient times would be able to build such a ship, but in modern times shipbuilding technology has degraded instead.”
As Benjamin was quite famous in the shipbuilding industry of Horn Bay, a group of southern ship craftsmen were vaguely led by him.
So Benjamin stepped forward and asked Paul: “Lord Gleeman, judging from the proportions of these two models, I’m afraid it’s not realistic to build such a large new type of ship all at once, can you let us first build a few small ships to try our hand at it, modeled after their structure.”
After all, he was a steady old craftsman, and even if he was itching to get started, he knew that he couldn’t do it overnight.
Paul angled his head, “This I thought of long ago, in fact, there is another kind of boat described in the ancient books, I have also restored its model, let me show you.”
He clapped his hands and the guards on the side took out a new model of the ship from the chest and set it up.
A favorite of the pirates of Earth’s Great Age of Sail – the Slurp Ship.
Used heavily in the 17th and 18th centuries for offshore trade and patrol operations in European countries and their colonies, this ship was designed for speed and agility from bow to stern.
Its hull length is generally about 20 meters, usually only one, occasionally two backward-mounted masts, on which hangs one or two transverse sails and a pair of large diagonal truss mainsail, which from afar looks like the dorsal fins of a shark swimming on the surface of the water.
Whether sidewind or downwind, this boat can use its huge sail area to propel the hull forward, and its iconic long bowsprit looks like a sword stabbing straight ahead, with a large bowsprit sail providing excellent steering and upwind sailing, a sail design so good that 21st-century windsurfing racing yachts around the world have adopted a similar layout.
A large 100-ton displacement sloop could carry 70-120 heavily armed pirates and up to 14 cannons.
It was a perfect example of the pirate principle of “those who can outrun me can’t outwit me, and those who can outwit me can’t outrun me”, allowing it to quickly catch up with fleeing merchant ships and force them to surrender, while also heading for shallow harbors when more powerful pirate-watching warships were just barely rising from the horizon without mastheads.
It was also the smallest vessel for safe trans-oceanic voyages, and a sloop not much larger than an offshore fishing boat could cross the Atlantic or round the Cape of Good Hope.
Simple in construction, it could be built in large numbers, allowing one’s sea power to quickly become an army.
Excellent performance, all across the Atlantic, a run around the Cape would certainly not be a problem.
Small size, can be used for craftsmen to practice and accumulate experience.
The crowd was once again captivated by this delicate and small vessel, and Old Benjamin excitedly exclaimed, “Lord Gleeman, let’s start tomorrow!”
Supervisor Rubin also saw this kind of boat for the first time, and looked at Paul with a grudging face, as if complaining why he didn’t bring it out earlier, so that he could grab a wall of fame in front of this group of foreigners.
Paul smiled apologetically at him; he too had only remembered this kind of boat a short while ago.
(End of chapter)