40. Naval deliberations 3

Chapter 40: Naval Discussions 3
Paul Greiman recently spent his free time studying the ship’s catalogue that he had “taken” from the shipyard superintendent.

He found that even the popular ships in the south were oar sailing ships, similar to the Calais ships in the Mediterranean Sea on Earth, which was a kind of long, narrow, low and flexible ship that used oars as the basic means of propulsion, although it was also equipped with sails, but that was only to allow oarsmen to preserve their strength during long voyages.

There is only one long row of oars on each side, and the larger oars are more than ten meters long and weigh up to 300 kilograms, so each oar is usually worked by three to eight people, often with hundreds of oarsmen on some of the larger vessels.

Most southern countries used criminals and slaves as oarsmen, with large numbers of oarsmen crammed into small spaces like sardines in a can.

As the ship sailed, the oarsmen worked their “muscle engines” to the beat of the drums under the threat of a whip.

There is a saying that describes the life of an oarsman on a boat: “If there is a hell in the world, it is in the oarsmen’s boat, where rest is never known.”

The oarsmen spend their days with their boards, drifting on the sea, whistling and drinking, and in times of stress, either drinking or whipping.

“What inhuman times! The wicked old society.”

Paul lamented as he rejoiced that he had come out of the crossing pretty well.

This kind of paddle sailing ship had existed in the era of Ancient Bella Empire, and the reason why it had endured was mainly because of the calm winds and waves along the Horned Bay, and the superb power and agility generated by human paddling in a short period of time had a great advantage in that kind of sea environment, which was very important for those southern countries to fight against each other on the sea and for the merchants to avoid pirates.

The other countries of the sea trade is not developed, there is no incentive to innovate shipbuilding technology, so the general pattern of imitation of the Gulf of Horn region of the ship, resulting in the world with almost all the Gulf of Horn paddle sailing ship or its variants, such as a few days ago Paul in the shipyard to see the kind of.

Oar sailing boats are mostly flat boats, not deep draft, in the shallow sea has the advantage, but the deep sea is not, because including oarsmen, the crew has many people, supply is also a big problem.

What Paul needed was the kind of ship that could cross the ocean with full sail power, according to his estimation, if he wanted to send the goods to the south by sea transportation, he would need to run more than 2,000 nautical miles for the whole journey from the Northwest Bay to Dakota Bay.

If one were to run to the East to sell goods on one’s own, without going through southern merchants as transit merchants, the distance would have to be even longer. Rowing over such distances by oarsmen was unthinkable, at least in his own mind.

What’s more, he had a “small” wish: to recruit explorers to make a voyage around the world like Magellan’s, “the world is so big, I also want to go to know about it”.

The theory of the roundness of the earth has been widely spread in most countries, but there is still a lack of direct and effective evidence, and if the expedition supported by himself proves that the earth under his feet is round, then it will certainly leave a colorful mark in the history of the world.

It just seemed that as of yet, the conditions for this wish were not there to be realized, and he found a carpenter to make models of two ships with full sails, according to his memories of his previous life.

One was modeled after the Swedish New Gothenburg, with a big-bellied U-shaped hull that was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, and three decks-the lower deck, the upper deck, and the open deck.

Three masts stood, each with square sails, the main and foremasts equipped with a topsail, mizzen sail and mainsail, and the mizzen mast with a rear mizzen sail and a large triangular mizzen sail.

At the bowsprit is the bowsprit fitted with a wooden truss for the bowsprit, and hanging below that are two other square-angled sails: the mizzen and mizzen mizzen sails.

The triangular canvas was rigged to better utilize the Bernoulli effect, allowing the ship to sail in upwind conditions, and the U-shaped hull would allow for a larger cargo capacity, deeper draught, and smoother sailing, but it also meant making the risk of grounding and stranding higher.

In Paul’s vision, this kind of ship, if it could be built, would be the mainstay of the Navy’s pre-existing equipment, and when armed with guns, would be able to traverse the oceans of this world.

The other was a model of a flying clipper ship. This type of ship had a small drydock and less superstructure, which not only improved the ship’s stability, but also allowed the sails to be fully utilized.

The ship sails almost close to the water surface, and its underwater shape is designed as a minimum resistance body to increase the speed, but maintains a certain lateral resistance profile, resulting in a particularly beautiful waterline, with an inward concavity in the waterline surface of the bow, and a long, sharp curve scissor-type bowsprit that presents a posture suitable for racing, and can split the waves to move forward to reduce wave resistance in the sea, so it is called a flying shear. Compared with the Gothenburg, the bowsprit of the Flying Scissor extends the length of the hull, and by extending a diagonal bar along the bowsprit, it is possible to hang some more jibs and spinnakers in the bow, which is conducive to enlarging the sail-supporting capacity.

The hollow bow makes it easy to lift the bow in the waves and improves the stability of the ship in the waves. The waterline with inclination, which is gradually thinning at the back, harmoniously transitions to the narrow rounded stern, which harmoniously blends with the graceful bow type.

However, the flying shearer sacrificed its load capacity for speed and was not suitable for a large number of guns. Paul intended to use this kind of ship to transport some low-volume but high-value cargoes after it was built, or equip it for the future marine police force to fight against piracy and anti-smuggling.

Shipyard director Rubin saw the two models, almost stared out of his eyes.

Indeed, first of all, regardless of the eyes of the otherworldly natives of these two ship design is reasonable and unreasonable, single on the degree of aesthetics, beyond the current paddle sailing ship a large section, novelty and beautiful shape of the shipyard in charge of the heart of the itch.

“A work of art!”

Rubin begged the count to leave the model in his shipyard, which also suited Paul’s needs, he couldn’t wait for this shipbuilding expert to think about it more.

He originally wanted to make a model of the sailing era saint ship “Victory” for Rubin’s reference, but when he thought of his own shipyard’s simple conditions, manufacturing that kind of huge thing is really a little bit of whimsy, so he had to settle for the second best to build this kind of small ship.

He asked with great anticipation: “Can we build two real ships according to these two models?”

However, even this wish was going to be disappointed, the shipyard director scrutinized the models and thought carefully for half a day, and finally stammered and admitted that with the current technical strength of the shipyard and the experience of the craftsmen, even if we do not take into account the raw materials and other issues, it is estimated that it will also take a “long, long time” to be able to build them.

Paul heard what he meant, this “long long” is estimated to be the monkey years and months.

“Why don’t you just say you can’t build it.”

The disappointment in the earl’s words was very obvious, Rubin was a bit anxious, he was so hard to get the earl’s attention ah, even his hard work to organize the ship’s iconography was sacrificed.

He had a flash of inspiration and gave Paul an idea: “My lord don’t be anxious, recently didn’t you save a certain big man from the Horned Bay Alliance, if you can dig a batch of craftsmen from the south through him, it should help, I have heard that the shipbuilding craftsmen in the south have built all sorts of strange and weird ships.”

Only the Lord Earl looked at him with a hint of a playful smile and said, “Aren’t you afraid that one of the new craftsmen will be able to take your place?”

“Ah? This …… this ……” Rubin was a bit flustered, just now he didn’t think of this, he was too presumptuous.

“Haha!” See Rubin anxious look, Paul no longer tease him, patted his shoulder relief: “Rest assured, as long as you old people study well, study hard and make progress, I absolutely can not forget you. Kiss or not, hometown people ah!”

“Yes, my lord! I will definitely study my skills well and live up to your high expectations.” Rubin took a long breath and patted his chest in assurance.

Paul looked towards the sea and silently thought to himself, “It’s time to talk to whichever Grand Master Foster is.”

Thank you for the rewards of “Purple Fascination Kui”, “Ink is quiet like water”, “Hutu Gui”.

Thanks to “seed198903” for the continuous recommendation.

(End of chapter)