Chapter 254

"Fast and fast, travel thousands of miles a day!"

Standing in the high bow of the Chartered Bermuda sloop, Lorraine opened her arms to the wind and shouted at the boundless sea and sky.

Bermuda sailboat is a new ship type that has gradually matured in recent years. It can be divided into single mast and multi mast. It generally refers to a special sailboat that should adopt new Bermuda sailboat and focus on American high-speed ship in design.

This kind of design is a treasure bred by British descent and American descent. It began to appear during the British African colonial period. It is a light high-speed schooner built with Kenyan Sequoia as the main material.

Later, the British found a more suitable alternative ship material, Bermuda cypress.

This kind of wood is light, hard, highly oily and not easy to change. Although it is not suitable for warships because of its brittleness, it is very suitable for commercial ships.

Bermuda's shipbuilding industry has sprung up.

Later, due to the large population of Bermuda, immigrants from the North American continent, especially Virginia. Chesapeake Bay shipbuilders, who are full of fantastic ideas and advocate speed in their bones, soon integrated Baltimore high-speed design, which formed a unique Bermuda style.

The lower freeboard brings a deeper draft, and the backward inclined mast increases the height of the mast, so that it can exceed the captain, and also move the center of gravity of the hull backward and tilt the bow.

The shape of sword bow, shield and stern is the consistent feature of Baltimore ships. They boldly expanded the aspect ratio, made the hull more slender and improved the ability of breaking waves.

In terms of sailings, Bermuda ships are mainly longitudinal sails, integrating the characteristics of Arabian triangular sails and Oriental hard sails. For the first time, sail bones are added to Western soft sails to form a unique Bermuda sail.

This design makes the wind receiving surface of the sailboat large and flexible. It can find a suitable wind cutting angle both downwind and upwind, and even run out of a super speed exceeding the wind speed in the right wind direction.

All this eventually combined into the fastest ship type in the world today, Bermuda sailing boat.

Its sloop has maintained the world's fastest speed of 18 knots and the world's fastest average speed of 12 knots.

The maximum speed of the twin mast mixed sail has also reached 16 knots, which is now the well deserved king of high speed.

Due to its active performance, Bermuda sailing ships have been rapidly popularized in the field of light merchant ships in the world, and even maritime powers have begun to explore their military possibilities.

In recent years, the Royal Navy has ordered a number of Bermuda ship types, of which the single mast longitudinal sail is used as communication assistance, and the double mast mixed sail and cross sail have replaced some shares of brigantin and Brig. They often have outstanding performance in local private collection theft.

Unfortunately, although Bermuda's sailboat is famous, Lorraine didn't personally experience her charm until today.

From Lorraine's professional perspective, the advantages and disadvantages of this special ship type with an aspect ratio of more than 5 to 1, a long mast and an obvious backward inclination are obviously particularly prominent.

Advantages needless to say, fast, very fast.

The Charon was a sloop, and the butterfly was a standard brigantin. The average speed of both ships was less than 6 knots, which was not in the same order of magnitude as the Bermuda ship with the same sails.

However, the Charon can be equipped with up to 6 nine pound side guns, the butterfly flower has 20 firepower, the brig type main gun can reach 12 pounds and 28 guns. These data are unexpected for Bermuda ship types.

For example, the single masted ship at the foot of Lorraine is only equipped with two civilian four pound guns, which is mainly used to expel and intimidate large marine organisms.

The standard ship load of the ketch included in the military will not exceed 16. Even if it is a double cross sail design, the caliber of the main gun is limited to nine pounds.

It is very limited to be used as an armed merchant ship, but it has incomparable advantages over traditional ship types in some uses.

Lorraine had the idea of a Baimu ship

"Haina, go and ask the owner if his boat is for sale?"

Haina was stunned: "can't you get used to other people's boats?"

"Er... I just think the Charon is too slow to be used as a substitute. I want to change one..."

Soon, the Weilan Shuizhu, that is, the Bermuda single longitudinal ship at Lorraine's feet, became Lorraine's asset at a price of 260 pounds. The specific procedures were handled by the personnel of the chamber of Commerce in Hamilton. When Leonard arrived, the crew would be replaced by someone Lorraine could trust.

For two days

In the afternoon, the Weilan water pearl glided across the Cape of komishenna on the island of Northern Ireland against the sunset, cut south into Harrington Bay, enjoyed the spectacular view of the Royal Navy dock all the way, and entered the flat water depth of Gretel Bay under the guidance of the townshire lighthouse.

The eastern head of Gretel Bay is the seat of Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda.

Weilan Shuizhu slowly berthed into the vacant wharf. Lorraine stood on the ship and didn't speak for a long time.

Haina, dressed in a moon white smock, invited Tingting to come to Lorraine and gently took his arm.

"Worried that Bell's information is false?"

Lorraine shook his head. "In fact, he doesn't worry much about Bell anymore."

"Huh?"

"When he came to me, smuggling didn't start at all, so he couldn't be a premeditated military undercover, and the worst part of it was the shack sent to me."

"But your brother is the commander of the mainland sub fleet."

"It's two different things." Lorraine smiled. "Shaq and I are private affairs. The so-called family scandal can't be publicized. Even if my smuggling falls into his ears, he won't make it public."

"After all, I'm Drake. Even if I'm expelled from my family, the family can't afford the bad name of offspring collaborating with the enemy."

"Therefore, the worst result is that Shaq will sink me at all costs, and he needs to take charge in person to avoid accidents in the process, such as my capture or surrender."

"But how long can the commander of the whole sub fleet stay at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay?"

"It won't last long." Lorraine shook his head. "Even if he is capricious again, he will advance and retreat with the lion at most. This means that as long as the lion is away, there will be no additional risk of shack and bell in our environmental risk."

"Besides... What if Bell's story is true?"

Haina leaned against Lorraine for a long time, and finally admitted that Lorraine's inference was reasonable.

The biggest crisis in the bell incident, that is, the conditions for the exposure of Lorraine's collusion with the enemy, are not sufficient? Bell is either innocent or the medium of confrontation between the Drake brothers. No matter what it is, the risk of smuggling will not be higher.

As a result, Bell's position became much simpler.

When he stood on Lorraine's side, the intelligence was true, and the chamber of Commerce received a good help. Everyone was happy.

He stood on shack's side, and the information was false. Lorraine was sure to roll up his blanket, but there was no need to splash blood five steps.

When bell left, Lorraine either urgently looked for a suitable pilot, or tied herself to smuggling and gave up the business of the chamber of Commerce.

Arms smuggling, a business with huge returns, has been downgraded from acceptable and unacceptable to favorable and unfavorable. This downgrade itself is a great advantage.

Just hope to have the most perfect result

Haina thought in her heart, but her words came to her mouth: "I've seen you uneasy all the way. Since there's no big deal over bell, so..."

Lorraine raised his hand to the northwest.

"The Royal Navy dock... The tight military port we passed when we came was Shaq's residence."

Haina looked gloomy: "if you want to see..."

"I'm not interested." Lorraine smiled inexplicably. "I'm not interested in seeing the noble master look arrogant. If bell is really his man, just give him a thank-you letter."

"Thank you letter?"

"Yes, thank you. How about [Helena's son's head is on the Jackdaw. If you like, please ride a lion to get it]?"

"I think... Very good."