Chapter 40： Naval Discussion III

Paul Gleiman recently studied the illustrated book of ships "shun" from the director of the shipyard when he was free. He found that even the ships that are popular in the south are galleys, similar to the Calais ships in the Mediterranean Sea on the earth. It is a narrow, long, low, and flexible boat type that uses oars as the basic means of propulsion. Although it is also equipped with sails, it is only for the oarsmen to preserve their physical strength during long-distance sailing. There is only one row of long oars on each side. The large oars are more than ten meters long and weigh up to 300 kilograms. Therefore, each oar is usually worked by 3 to 8 people, and some large ships are often equipped with hundreds of oarsmen. .

Most of the southern countries used criminals and slaves as oarsmen, and a large number of oarsmen were packed into a small space like sardines in a can. When the boat sailed, the oarsmen desperately started their "muscle motors" to the rhythm of drums under the threat of leather whips. There is such a sentence to describe the life of the oarsmen on the ship, "If there is **** in the world, then **** is in the sailboat. Here, I never know what rest is." Whistle and drink, and when nervous, they either use wine to strengthen their courage or suffer from whipping.

"It's such a cruel and inhumane era! The evil old society." Paul sighed, rejoicing over and over again that his background after crossing was not bad.

This kind of galley existed in the time of the Gubera Empire, and the reason why it lasted for a long time is mainly because the area around the corner bay is calm, and the super power and flexibility generated by human paddling in a short period of time are unique in that sea environment. Great advantage, which is very important for those southern countries' sea battles and merchants avoiding pirates. However, the maritime trade in other countries is not developed, and they have no motivation to innovate shipbuilding technology. Therefore, it is common to imitate the ships in the Jiaowan area. As a result, almost all the ships in the world are used in the Jiaowan galley or its variants. For example, the former The kind Paul saw in the shipyard a few days ago.

Most of the galleys are flat boats, and the draft is not deep. They have an advantage in shallow seas, but not in deep seas, because there are many crew members including oarsmen, and supplies are also a big problem.

What Paul needs is a full-sail powered ship that can cross the ocean. According to his calculation, if the goods are to be transported to the south by sea, it will take more than 2,000 nautical miles to travel from the Northwest Gulf to Dajiao Bay. Using southern merchants as transit merchants to sell goods in the east by themselves, the distance traveled will be longer. Such a distance was unimaginable, at least in his own opinion, to be covered by a rower.

What's more, he still has a "little" wish: to recruit explorers to take a voyage around the world like Magellan, "The world is so big, I want to know about it too."

The theory of a round earth has been widely circulated in most countries, but there is still a lack of direct and effective evidence. If the expedition he supports proves that the earth under his feet is round, it will definitely leave a strong mark in the history of this world.

It's just that as far as it is concerned, the conditions for this wish have not yet been fulfilled. He found a carpenter and made two models of full-sail ships based on his memories of his previous life.

One is based on the Swedish Nova Gothenburg as a sample, with a U-shaped hull with a narrow top and a wide bottom, and three decks—the lower deck, the upper deck and the exposed deck. Standing three masts, each with square sails, the main and foremast are equipped with a topsail, topsail and mainsail, and the mizzenmast has a mizzentopsail and a big triangle mizzensail. At the bow, is the bowsprit with the jib boom, and below that hang two other squaresails: the sprigsail and the sprigtopsail.

Equipped with triangular canvas is to make better use of the Bernoulli effect, so that the ship can sail in a headwind environment, and the U-shaped hull will make the ship have a larger cargo capacity, a deeper draft, and a more stable sailing, but it also means that the There is an increased risk of grounding and stranding.

In Paul's vision, if this kind of ship can be built, it will become the main equipment of the navy in the early stage. After being equipped with artillery, it will run unimpeded on the oceans of this world.

The other is a model of a clipper ship. This type of ship has a small freeboard and less superstructure, which not only improves the stability of the ship, but also can give full play to the role of the sail. 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 transverse resistance profile, resulting in a particularly beautiful waterline, with a concave, long and sharp bow on the waterline surface The curvilinear scissor-shaped bow is in a posture suitable for racing, and it can cut waves and advance to reduce wave resistance at sea, so it is called flying shear.

Compared with the Gothenburg, the bow of the flying shear ship extends the length of the hull, and a slash can be extended along the bow to hang some stay jibs on the bow, which is beneficial to expand the capacity of the sails; the hollow bow enables The boat is easy to raise the bow in the waves, which improves its course stability in the waves. The gradually thinning and sloping waterline of the rear body transitions harmoniously to the narrow rounded stern, harmoniously blending with the graceful bow shape.

However, the flying shear ship sacrificed its load capacity for speed, and it is not suitable for a large number of artillery equipment. Paul intends to use this ship to transport some small but high-value cargo after it is built, or equip it for future maritime police forces to fight against pirates and Anti-smuggling.

Rubin, the director of the shipyard, almost popped his eyes when he saw the two models. Indeed, regardless of whether the design of these two ships is reasonable or not in the eyes of the natives from other worlds, in terms of aesthetics alone, they surpass the current galleys by a large margin. The novel and graceful shape makes the shipyard director feel itchy.

"A work of art!"

Rubin begged the earl to leave the model in his shipyard, which was exactly what Paul wanted, and he wished that the shipbuilder would think more about it. He originally wanted to make a model of the holy ship "Victory" in the age of sails for Rubin's reference, but when he thought of the crude conditions in his own shipyard, it was a bit whimsical to make such a huge ship, so he had to retreat to build this small ship He asked full of expectation: "Can you build two real ships according to these two models?"

However, even this wish will come to nothing. The director of the shipyard looked at the model and thought carefully for a long time. After all, he admitted hesitantly. With the current technical strength and craftsman experience of the shipyard, even if the raw materials and other issues are not considered, it is estimated that it will take a long time. It takes a long "time" to make it.

Paul heard what he meant, and this "very long, very long" is probably the Year of the Monkey.

"You just say you can't make it."

The disappointment in the earl's words was very obvious, Rubin was a little anxious, but he finally got the earl's attention, and even sacrificed the ship illustration book he had worked so hard to organize. He had a flash of inspiration and gave Paul an idea: "My lord, don't worry, haven't you recently rescued a certain important person from the Horn Bay Alliance? If you can dig a group of craftsmen from the south through him, it should be helpful. I heard that the shipbuilders in the south have built all kinds of strange ships."

The Earl looked at him with a playful smile, and said, "Aren't you afraid that some of the new craftsmen will steal your seat?"

"Ah? This... this..." Rubin was a little flustered. He didn't think of this just now, and he was too reckless.

"Haha!" Seeing Rubin's embarrassed look, Paul stopped teasing him and patted him on the shoulder to comfort him: "Don't worry, as long as you old people study hard, study hard, and keep improving, I will never forget you. Dear Dear, hometown people!"

"Yes, my lord! I will definitely study the technology well and live up to your high expectations." Lu Bin breathed a sigh of relief, patted his chest and promised.

Paul looked at the sea and thought silently: "It's time to talk to the young master Foster."