Two Hundred and Seventy-Three BEACON Ⅷ: Beacon

The experience last night was probably the biggest setback Lorraine has ever encountered since the death of the captain at Cherbourg.

A total of 22 people died in the whole ship, and 16 people were injured to varying degrees. Among them, 19 people involved in the explosion were all killed, and none of them survived.

The Jackdaw is also in the sacrifice sequence.

The keel was broken, the stern was broken, the mainmast and mizzen were broken, and the afterdeck was in a mess, and there was almost no complete place.

If it weren't for the Jackdaw's lack of combat power at all, Lorraine only stocked the minimum amount of gunpowder and shells, and the detonation alone would be enough to send the ship directly to the bottom of the sea.

But now, after a night of tossing, the fire was extinguished, the hull was barely preserved, the salvage of personal belongings in the poop was almost over, and all the flying munitions were handed over to the Saints to handle.

There are two immediate problems for Lorraine. One is how to avoid people's eyes and ears, and retrieve the ancient gold artifacts weighing more than 300 pounds and gold coins worth nearly 50,000 pounds from the bottom of the bilge deck.

The total weight of these golds reached more than 370 kilograms, and the main body included tens of thousands of golden octagonal gold coins, tens of thousands of pounds and a similar number of gold louis.

If these crimes were piled up on the embankment directly, Lorraine worried that he would start a war with the white people in Qianwan.

The other is the boat...

The life of the Jackdaw was doomed, and Lorraine lost her flagship for the first time in her life.

To make matters worse, the Jackdaw was very important to him, and its value was far more than just a good ship.

He needed to find a replacement for the Jackdaw as soon as possible, an ultra-high-speed merchant ship with enough cargo space and a large enough cargo space, and a certain self-protection capability.

And this kind of boat can only be found in three places, one is Bermuda, one is Baltimore, and the other is the current Boston Back Bay.

That's why Lorraine followed Jefferson to Back Bay.

With Jefferson's wisdom, he must have known Lorraine's needs.

Since he recommended his friend at this point, Lorraine has reason to be optimistic. The owner of the shipyard named Edmond Height happened to have the water tank and boat that Lorraine needed.

As a result, it was really good.

Seeing the smoking Jackdaw being slowly dragged into the temporarily rented shipyard water tank by two tugboats, Lorraine finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Mr. Haight, after what happened last night, I am really grateful that you are willing to take us in."

On the pier of the water tank, Lorraine, Jefferson and a tall and strong gentleman gathered in a triangle.

This gentleman is Jefferson's friend Edmund Haight, the owner of the Haight Shipyard in Boston, a gentleman, but his fingers are full of oil and paint.

How should I put it... just like another Karen, who is not even good at words.

Listening to Lorraine's polite words,

Heite waved his hands modestly.

"No, no, Mr. Kenway, I didn't do anything for you. You rented the water tank, and even the accident compensation clause was your proposal. Facing a gentleman who thinks about others like you, I can't find any Reason for refusal."

"For the sake of others? Probably no one in Qianwan would see it that way..." Lorraine laughed and pointed outside the warehouse.

Disappointment was evident on Hayter's face, and even his broad shoulders drooped.

"Is that so? That's right. Your experience last night was too thrilling. You should take a good rest now instead of dealing with me, a stranger I met for the first time..."

Lorraine gave Jefferson a strange look, but only saw a helpless wry smile on the face of this old and cunning politician.

But Jefferson didn't seem to want to intervene.

Lorraine rolled her eyes depressedly: "Mr. Haight probably misunderstood. What I was referring to just now was not the door, but your dock."

"My dock?"

"Yes, you have also seen the condition of the Jackdaw. Since Mr. Governor introduced me here, I think you should have a good ship in your hands, right?"

...

Lorraine never imagined that the temptation to give everything to optimism would lead him to such a strange ship.

Yes, strange.

In the third dry dock of Haydt Shipyard, Lorraine stood in front of a large ship whose mast had been lowered, silently flipping through the detailed sea trial report provided by Haydt.

According to the description of the sea trial report, the ship named Dao Biaohao is 53 meters long, 9.7 meters wide, 5.5 meters draft, and 1,150 tons displacement.

She should be a three-masted bagger of the same type as the Jackdaw, with a total of three reclining masts. The mainmast is 52 meters long and 50 meters high. The sails are double horizontal and one vertical, which sounds quite satisfactory.

Of course, it sounded exactly what it sounded like, because no living person with eyes would associate the four characters of Dao Sign and Que Que.

This is a demon ship cursed by speed!

The fragile hollow bow sacrificed the bow gun and moved the center of gravity back, which is for speed.

The standard Baltimore design of the bow and stern improves the ability to break waves and separate water, for speed.

The purpose of tilting the mast back is to further adjust the center of gravity. At the same time, the tilted mast can make the mast longer, the sail surface larger, and the probability of the rear sail blocking the front sail from the wind is reduced, all for speed.

Even when warships all over the world are still arguing about the aspect ratio of 3.5 or 4, she has adopted the extremely thin ratio of 5.5 to make the whole ship into an arrow, also for the sake of speed.

That's not all.

Compared with the hollow bow, the double-layered six-door stern cannon is obviously to make the bow higher.

The traditional four wide sails in one mast were replaced by seven narrow sails to increase the flexibility of catching the wind.

Wing sails are of course an indispensable high-speed configuration.

In addition, four Bermuda triangle bow sails are arranged on the 12-meter-long bowsprit to enhance the windward force.

The four wind-catching sails densely located between the mainmast and the foremast enhance the windward force. 27KK

Arranged on the entire mizzen, the nearly 40-meter-high super-Bermuda boned soft sail greatly increases the strong wind resistance.

All of these create the Dao Sign in front of you.

With a speed of 16 knots downwind and 5.5 knots against the wind, Lorraine can guarantee that her speed is the best in the world among large ships above 50 meters without special data collection!

But is this really good?

For the super speed, the price paid by the Daobiao is the extremely sensitive center of gravity of the ship and the weaker ability to resist wind and waves than Brigantine.

This ship probably won't capsize as it goes, but all it takes is a broadside shot...

It doesn't need to be paired with a twenty-four-pound heavy gun of her level, as long as it is eighteen pounds, she will definitely be overturned by the recoil of the artillery.

In other words, she is not an armed merchant ship at all, but a pure and extremely fast merchant ship.

But Lorraine saw the gun ports on the side of the road mark, some sporadic, strange, different from the normal square, and the style was obviously rectangular.

He curiously turned to the second page of the shipboard evaluation, and was immediately impressed by the whimsy of the design team of Haight Shipyard.

The Daobiao is really not suitable for equipped with ship-borne guns, so the original two-story gun bay was changed into one, and the upper layer was adjusted to a simple cargo hold.

On the lower floor, the designers creatively arranged a unique diamond-shaped gun bay, combined with a fan-shaped gun rail, to fix two shooting directions obliquely forward and obliquely backward in a square inch, one for chasing and one for shooting. run away.

Lorraine was amazed and couldn't help but read aloud.

"This is probably the most nerdy deployment plan in the history of HNA..."

Heite has been nervously waiting for Lorraine's comment, but because he was too nervous, he couldn't hear Lorraine's words clearly for a while.

"Sorry, Mr. Kenway..."

Lorraine shook her head and closed the evaluation report: "You don't have to care about me, please introduce me to Dao Biaohao, I am very interested in her."

"Really!" Heit blushed excitedly, "This child is called Daobao, Beacon, Beacon, Guiding Light, because she is the daughter of Boston!"

"Boston is well-deservedly American. On the one hand, the town's earliest colonization is between three mountains, and the tallest and most central of the three mountains is Beacon Hill."

"On the other hand, Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, the Wind Lantern hanging from the steeple of Old North Church, which started our independent career, is nicknamed the Guiding Light by people all over America."

"Thirdly, this ship is an experimental ship with a great design, a beacon of a new era of oceans. We are trying to find out from her the way for large warships to speed up..."

"So, she is an experiment, and she is still an immature experiment, isn't she?" Lorraine interrupted with a smile.

"Yes, it is."

"Since you said that you want to find out from her the way to increase the speed of large warships, may I ask, what is the elevation angle of her full round shelling?"

"It depends on the wind and waves at the time..."

"Gentle wind, gentle waves."

"5...5 degrees." Heit rolled his eyes guiltily.

"5 degrees?"

"Five degrees...to fifteen degrees."

Lorraine opened her mouth wide: "You mean, you and your team gave up a whole layer of firepower, placed 16 guns in the space of 24 guns, and even gave up the advantage of the T-head, and she still has a 15-degree elevation angle? "

"In the case of micro waves... that's it."

"Where's the big wave?"

Hayter was frightened by Lorraine's yelling and shrank his neck: "Because the middle waves and big waves were evaluated after the small waves, the hired sailors refused...but they paid the liquidated damages readily..."

"When you got the liquidated damages, didn't you ever think that the best destination for this ship is actually to be dismantled by you?"

"Well……"

Looking at the clumsy and speechless Heite, Lorraine didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

"Forget it, Mr. Haight, let me ask the last question, how much is the price of the Taobao?"

Haight seemed to grasp at the last straw.

"Mr. Kenway! The whole body of this child is made of the best Bermuda cypress, and the sails are handmade banner sails from Baltimore. It is fully equipped with 16 18-pounder long-range guns and 6 12-pounder mid-range stern guns. For three years, I have been taking good care of it, and it is in better condition than when it was new..."

"Sorry, I want to hear the price."

Heite gritted his teeth, and said hoarsely: "The price...the price of the road mark is 7,500 pounds!"

Lorraine was shocked again.

Not because it is too expensive, but because it is too cheap.

Daobiao is made of top-notch materials for high-speed ships, and with that pitiful ship outfit, even if it sells for 15,000 pounds, it can only be regarded as a return of money, not to mention that it has been maintained in a dry dock for three years. Long.

Dry dock maintenance is a special treatment that only first- and second-tier ships can enjoy. After maintenance, the wood will become tougher and more resistant to corrosion. In other words, it can greatly increase the service life of the ship.

Just a merchant ship, as for it?

If this ship is of great significance to Haight, why should he sell it at such a low price?

Thinking of this, a sentence suddenly popped into Lorraine's mind.

[This ship is an experimental ship of a great design, a beacon of a new era of ocean]...

"Mr. Haight, please allow me to ask, are you short of money?"

Reborn as a Pirate