Daming pirates

The day's trial voyage finally ended when it got dark. Yu Xiaotian took the ship back to Nanyue Island and entered the bay surrounded by many ships.

The craftsmen who could not catch up with the ship to go out to sea to test the water had been waiting here for a long time. As soon as they saw the ship returning intact, they all rushed to the shore to greet it.

The sampan once again towed the new boat to the dock, and handed it over to people on the shore to slowly tow the boat back to the dock.

After a day of testing, the shipwrights did not dare to be careless and quickly boarded the ship to carefully inspect the ship from beginning to end to see if there were any problems with the hull structure and whether there was any water leakage.

Even if such a situation occurs, it is normal. After a ship enters the water from the dry dock, the stress on the hull changes drastically. Some problems that were not discovered before will become apparent after launching and testing the water. Therefore, in this era, according to

As a general rule, after a new boat is launched and delivered, it must first test the water in the boathouse area for a few days to thoroughly inspect the hull. At the same time, the various sails, rudders, winches and other items on the boat must be inspected until there are no problems.

, will be delivered to the shipowner who ordered the ship.

So here at Sea Wolf, everything is still business as usual. After a day of testing the water, the new ship was immediately towed back to the dock for a major inspection inside and out.

After another day of inspection the next day, Guo Fu told Yu Xiaotian: "The master Qi, the crew has checked this new boat inside and out, except for a few seams found to be somewhat damaged.

Except for the leakage, the rest of the parts are very solid and no problems were found!

I just don’t know how the boss feels about using this boat after taking people to test the water."

Yu Xiaotian nodded and said: "That's good! After I took people to test the water yesterday, I felt that the overall performance of this boat is not very far from what I want, but the speed has not reached the speed I want!

The sail gear still needs to be adjusted, and the jib in the front can be enlarged! This will increase the speed of the boat.

In addition, the rudder is a bit stiff when operating, and it is stuck at a few points. The helmsman has a little effort when turning the rudder stock. Please check back later and solve this problem.

There is also a longer rudder stock, which can save the helmsman more effort when turning the rudder. The angle cannot be adjusted for the time being. If the angle of the rudder stock can be adjusted, the boat will be more flexible. So far,

, I feel that this boat has not fully exerted its capabilities!

Furthermore, the front of the ballast stone on the bottom of the ship is too heavy, and the bow cannot lift when running, which also affects the speed. The roll is a bit large, and it is not as stable as I thought.

But overall, this boat is still good. At least in terms of speed, it is unmatched among our boats! In the next month, I will personally take the boat or have someone take the boat out to sea every day to test the water, and strive to

Find out more defects and modify them while building the next ship. When the next ship is neatly built, the existing problems can be basically solved together."

Guo Fu wrote down the questions raised by Yu Xiaotian one by one, and promised to start checking and revising them immediately after Yu Xiaotian returned.

In the next month, although Yu Xiaotian could not take the boat out for a trial run every day, he would at least take one day out every three to five days to take the boat out to test the water.

After a month, the name of this ship was basically determined. This kind of sloop is indeed a very good type of ship. It is fast, easy to operate, and very flexible. It requires a large number of sailors.

It is also very rare. Not only is it very suitable for offshore sailing, but it can also maintain stability at sea even in bad weather.

But it cannot be said that this kind of ship is perfect. The biggest problem occurs precisely in the sails. Although Yu Xiaotian tried his best to get a large amount of Indian canvas from the Spaniards, which satisfied the requirements of this new ship's sails.

However, because the stress points of this kind of sail are relatively concentrated, and this kind of Indian canvas is also made of natural materials, cotton and linen, the strength is somewhat unable to meet Yu Xiaotian's requirements.

Over the course of a month, during several trial voyages, when the wind was strong, the sails, especially the bow sail, were torn in several stressed areas. As a last resort, we had to turn back and return to the island for repairs.

At this time, Yu Xiaotian felt that he was still a little too optimistic. Although this kind of sloop was indeed a very good sailing ship, the sailing problem limited its performance.

If we want to completely solve this problem, only the invention of chemical fiber fabrics, which greatly increases the stress strength of sails, can this problem be completely solved.

However, chemical fiber fabrics are not something he can solve now. This requires the development of a complete set of chemical technology to accomplish such a thing.

Therefore, he can only thicken the stress-bearing part of the sail to meet the current needs, and it is necessary to keep a spare sail on this kind of ship. If the sail is found to be torn, there will be a spare set of sails.

For use by persons on board the ship.

In addition to this problem, after a month of water testing, this boat has basically exerted its characteristics. However, due to the thickening and strengthening of the wooden structure of the hull, the dead weight of the hull has increased, which has affected this to a certain extent.

The speed of the boat was not as fast as Xiaotian wanted, and was lower than what he expected.

But even so, the speed of this ship has made the Sea Wolf tribe very satisfied. Every time it goes out for a trial voyage, there will be ships accompanying this new ship to sea, but every time it goes to sea, this ship rises

After hoisting the sail, it will immediately break through the waves and leave the ships accompanying it out to sea without even a trace. It can't even smell the farts.

So this new ship soon got the nickname "Flying on the Water" among the Sea Wolf tribe. Whenever they went out to sea for trial trials, the Sea Wolf tribe would jump to their feet and cheer and shout at the ship when they met it along the way.

Later, Yu Xiaotian simply named the ship "Feiyu" and it was specially used as a test ship.

After testing the water several times and confirming the safety of the hull structure, Yu Xiaotian ordered four six-pound cannons to be installed on the ship, two on each side of the ship, and a 12-pound short cannon on the bow.

Used as the bow main gun.

After installing the cannon, Yu Xiaotian first had the ship conduct a moored firing test on the seashore to check the strength of the hull under the vibration of the cannon's recoil.

After the test gun was moored on the shore, the stress-bearing parts such as the hull and internal cabins were inspected and no cracks were found. Only then did Yu Xiaotian let the ship go to sea for the gunnery test.

After some gun tests, Yu Xiaotian concluded that the ship was absolutely strong. He ordered the sailors on the ship to point the two six-pound guns on the side of the ship and the 12-pound cannon on the bow in one direction at the same time.

Fire was fired, and the ship successfully withstood the recoil of the three guns. It was just a huge shock to the hull, but it did not cause any damage to the hull structure.

In this way, this ship basically has combat effectiveness. You don't have to worry about overturning or damaging your ship due to firing of cannons when fighting with others at sea.

So Yu Xiaotian once again arranged a new task for the ship, and sent the crew of the ship to load about twenty tons of cargo, almost filling the entire cabin, and set out to sea toward Jilong Bay.

Through such a voyage, we will test the speed of the ship after it is fully loaded, as well as the stability and safety of this ship in wide and rough waters.

In order to ensure the safety of the ship and the people on board, Yu Xiaotian arranged for two additional shuttle boats to serve as escort ships for the ship and accompany it to Jilong Bay.

Unexpectedly, on the fifth day, the Feiyu ran back to Nanyue Island for business. The temporary captain who led the boat out told Yu Xiaotian: "Qi reported to the big master, and the younger one came back first!"

"

Yu Xiaotian asked him: "Why did you come back by yourself? Where are the other two boats?"

"Report it to Master Qi! Those two boats are so slow! When we went there, our Feiyu was full of cargo and they couldn't catch up with us. We had to wait for them while we were walking. Finally we arrived at Jiji

Lung Wan saw the black leader and the others.

It was easy to unload the cargo on this ship. The cargo was unloaded in less than a day. We set sail and returned as ordered by the boss!

The two boats were moving too slowly, and the Feiyu didn't carry much cargo, so my subordinates wanted to test how long it would take for the boat to come back as quickly as possible, so they went with the brothers on the other two boats.

We discussed it and took the boat back by ourselves first!

If my subordinates guessed correctly, I estimate that they have only walked half the distance at this moment, and they will not be back until at least tomorrow night!" the captain replied triumphantly.

Yu Xiaotian was very happy when he heard this, and then asked: "So how long did it take you from Jilongwan to back here?"

The captain immediately replied: "To tell you the truth, after setting off from Jilong Bay, the young man made the whole journey back. It took him a day and a night plus about two hours in total! He just ran back!"

Yu Xiaotian silently calculated in his mind, and estimated the distance from his two trips to Jilong Bay. The straight-line distance from Nanyue Island to Jilong Bay is probably close to 300 kilometers or even further. In addition, it requires a certain detour, so it is definitely

More than 300 kilometers, one day and one night plus one

An hour is twenty-eight to twenty-nine hours, so it can be roughly concluded that the average speed of this new ship on the road should be more than about 14 to 5 kilometers per hour. If converted into nautical miles, the average speed of this ship

It probably reached a speed of seven or eight knots.

Such an average speed is already very fast in this era. Even the Galen ships currently used by Westerners may not be able to reach such an average speed.

And based on his experience in several sea trials, the maximum speed of this ship can basically reach about ten knots, or even exceed ten knots, which also shows that the speed of this ship is quite fast.

Although this is nothing compared to some modern warships in later generations that can easily reach speeds of more than 30 or even 40 knots, some common cargo ships in later generations can reach speeds of about 12, 30 to 10 knots at sea.

About five or six knots, fast cargo ships are about twenty knots, but that is achieved by relying on the powerful power they carry. Nowadays, ships can run at such speeds only by relying on the current sail power.

Yu Xiaotian thinks that he is enough to be proud of for the time being.

Of course, among the sailing warships, there are other types of ships that can run faster than the current sloop, such as the clipper ship, but so far, it is not yet time for him to build the clipper ship, and the technical reserves are not enough.

It is too weak, so we can only do it step by step, starting with building a sloop with a relatively simple structure, small displacement, and relatively low technical difficulty, and then gradually let the shipbuilding craftsmen accumulate experience, and then consider building more

It's not too late for a bigger and faster sailboat.

(Today, I would like to express my special thanks to Brother Tie Shou for the reward! It is the beginning of the month, please brothers, please don’t hesitate to leave your precious monthly tickets to me! Please, I want a monthly ticket! Thank you!)