Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence - Chapter 553 - 334: Dawn
Chapter 553: Chapter 334: Dawn
On the shipyard at the southwest side of the harbor basin, the air was filled with a mixture of sawdust, tar, and steam.
Louis stood on the temporary trial water platform, his gaze fixed on the newly assembled experimental ship, Prototype No. 1.
It was the first small ship with a steam paddle wheel structure, completed by the Red Tide Craftsmen Corps and the shipbuilding team from the Southeast Province in three weeks.
The paddle wheels on both sides of the aft cabin were huge and heavy, connected to the steam engine by gears.
“Prepare to start,” Mike said in a low voice.
The technician nodded, turned the valve, and the steam engine roared to life, spinning the paddle wheels abruptly.
Water splashed at the stern, but in the next moment, the Dawn violently shook, and the hull began to list to the left.
“The paddle wheel is off to the left!” a sailor shouted.
“Reduce the pressure quickly! The stern is shaking too much!”
The paddle wheels frantically churned the water, yet the speed was far less than anticipated.
Several sailors were dumbfounded, and someone even muttered, “It’s not even as good as my old fishing boat at home… at least it doesn’t spin in circles on its own.”
Louis remained still, just watching the chaos of the water behind the ship.
Not far away, the old shipwright Bernard stood on the shore, frowning and murmured, “It pushes hard, but doesn’t move fast…”
The deck began to emit the light creak of twisting boards.
“The lower deck is shaking!” someone shouted.
Louis finally spoke up, “Stop the engine.”
The steam valve slowly closed, the paddle wheels gradually slowed down, and finally stopped with a creak at the midpoint, hanging in mid-air like a pair of wooden wheels that couldn’t complete a dance.
Louis’s gaze swept over the few cracks on the Dawn, “Suspend the steam propulsion, convert the Dawn to a pure sail configuration.”
Mike urged softly, “My Lord, should we not try modifying it… maybe add a stabilization tank?”
Louis waved his hand, “I was too hasty, let’s build traditional ships first and wait until the technology matures.”
After the trial, Bernard and the shipwrights organized the site, while Mike and the Red Tide steam team were responsible for dismantling the damaged paddle wheel structure.
Louis stood on the shore, his gaze not showing much disappointment, as he had already anticipated it in his heart.
“The steam engine isn’t enough, we still need to keep refining it,” he said softly, “It’s not the right time yet, but that kid will get it right sooner or later.”
Louis asked Mike to sort out all the records of this experiment and send everything to the Red Tide Workshop for Hamilton to reference.
Meanwhile, over at the shipyard in the harbor basin, although the steam propulsion plan was temporarily shelved, this did not distance Louis from the shipbuilding workshop.
He simply switched to a more pragmatic approach, no longer obsessed with achieving a so-called revolutionary ship all at once.
He started giving suggestions from the basics, attempting a series of small but precise improvements on the traditional hull structure.
Of course, most of these suggestions came from his memories of knowledge from a previous life.
Louis never issued commands in a directive tone, often squatting by the blueprints, doodling in the corners with a pen, and then asking, “If we do it this way, would it save a bit of effort?”
The first change was to the sail system.
He suggested replacing the original three square sails with a combination of square sails and slant sails, and introduced a pulley system to reduce the resistance of raising the sails.
After testing, the efficiency of raising one main sail nearly doubled, an operation that originally required four people could now be easily done by two.
Mike nodded repeatedly as he watched, praising Lord Louis as a genius.
On the side, the old shipwright Bernard frowned and muttered, “Will this work?”
After all, the young lord was not a shipwright, and the failure of the steam ship further proved this point, as a shipwright with pride, he was somewhat annoyed by this behavior.
Bernard watched as Louis squatted by the side of the ship, drawing rope paths, then turned his head and asked, “If we replace the pulleys on the foresail with a double axle one, can we reduce climbing the mast once when furling the sail?”
He looked at the diagram for a while before understanding what Louis was saying, and replied, “In theory, yes, but it would increase the risk of slipping.”
“Then let’s try and see.”
Bernard nodded in agreement, with a polite smile on his face, but was unconvinced inwardly.
He had seen nobles meddle with craftsmen’s work, thinking they could improve hull structures after hearing a few shipbuilding principles, only to end up modifying a good ship to the point where it couldn’t even catch the wind.
So he responded with experience, installing only one set according to the diagram, waiting for it to fail, so that this shipbuilding genius would naturally learn his lesson.
But the result was unexpected; the pulleys ran smoothly, the sails were hoisted and lowered effortlessly, and even the ropes didn’t snag or slip.
The efficiency was as surprising as it was unbelievable.
“It actually works?” Bernard couldn’t help but blurt out.
He turned back to examine those pulley slots, even more precise and smooth than his own designs.
That night, he secretly went back to the workshop and traced the diagram again, adding a few notes on the side.
The next day, Louis visited the workshop for inspection, glanced at the installed structure, and without any bragging, said softly, “This area might be further optimized… but you’re the one who truly understands ships, what to change, you decide.”
Bernard was silent for a moment, nodded slightly, “Understood, My Lord.”
This time, he truly understood.
……
Just as the tide receded from the southwest of the harbor basin, a dull “click” sound came from the rails over at the workshop.
Two thick oak tracks extended from the shipyard into the bay waters, their surfaces still crusted with salt frost from drying.
Bernard stood on one side, glanced toward the end of the rails, and said quietly, “The tide level is just right, and the embankment over there hasn’t loosened, we can launch it.”
Russell didn’t respond, only turned his head to look at the center of the shipyard, where an unnamed ship was already set up and ready.
Louis named this ship Dawn.
It was the first ship officially put into use at Dawn Port, and the first ship body for dual combat and transportation born under the Red Tide Territory’s construction system.
