Chapter 509: The First Generation of Sailboats (Seeking votes and subscriptions)

Inland river navigation actually still follows the old standards. Anyone who knows a little about ships knows that first of all, the draft is shallow and the bottom of the ship should be as flat as possible. The purpose of this is to obtain good passability.

The water level of inland rivers is mostly not very deep. If the ship drafts too deeply, it is easy to run aground.

Secondly, it is low freeboard, that is, the part above the waterline is relatively low, and the side of the ship is generally only about one meter away from the water surface. This is determined by the draft depth. After all, for a shallow draft ship, there is not much below the waterline. If the superstructure is made too high, it will cause the center of gravity of the ship to be unstable, and a strong wind may blow the ship over.

Other things like the bow and stern, whether it is flat, pointed or round is not very important, anyway, it is not much different when sailing in inland rivers.

Of course, these are not important. The most critical point is that this time Luo Chong is going to start producing paddle boats, that is, ships powered by sails and can be powered by oars when going against the current or against the wind.

In addition, considering that no one knows how to operate a sailboat, Luo Chong is going to design the first generation of sails as Chinese hard sails. The purpose is of course to make it easy to operate, learn quickly, and easy to use.

According to the type of sails, they can be roughly divided into two types. Most of the sails in ancient China are hard sails with

longitudinal sails. Even if you have never seen the real thing, it is not difficult to see it in film and television dramas. The Chinese longitudinal hard sail is a vertical rectangle with a double-layer structure. There are many horizontal bamboo poles inserted in it for support, which increases the strength of the sail surface and facilitates the rotation of the wind direction of the sail. The specific operation method is to stand below and raise the sail like raising a flag. The operation is very simple, but the flexibility of the ship is poor.

Western sailing ships are basically horizontal soft sails in the later period. Several layers of beams are tied to the mast. The sails are also divided into four or five sections from top to bottom. There are no supports such as bamboo poles and wooden sticks in the canvas. The operation is also very troublesome, and even requires sailors to climb up and down the mast, which is very dangerous. Those who have seen Pirates of the Caribbean should have a very deep impression of this.

However, every disadvantage has its advantages. Although this kind of soft sail with horizontal sail is difficult to operate, it can maximize the use of wind power. The main sail, secondary sail, tail sail, foremast triangular sail, and multiple sails can be used together to make the ship more flexible and even allow the ship to sail against the wind.

Generally, the triangular sail in front of Western ships is used for sailing against the wind. When this triangular sail is moving against the wind, it can use the side wind and headwind to make the ship move forward in a Z-shaped route, which is commonly known as the snakeskin maneuver.

Of course, this kind of sail is too complicated. Even Luo Chong himself doesn’t understand it very well, let alone those tribesmen who don’t even know what a sailboat looks like. Therefore, in the initial construction stage, it is better to use the hard sail of the ancestors and practice with the longitudinal sail first.

Another point is that since the longitudinal sail is installed on the ship, it is very likely to lose power in the case of headwind and upstream, and it will not be able to move forward, and it will even be pushed back by the impact of the water flow. Therefore, oars and paddles should be installed on this ship as auxiliary power.

And because these ships are to sail on the wide river, the ships built must be larger. For this specific parameter, Luo Chong directly applied the size of the inland gunboats in the early days of the founding of the country in his previous life, and then slightly widened it according to the actual situation. The final size of the first generation was 20 meters long and 6 meters wide.

How big is this size? According to the size of an ordinary bungalow, it is about two houses wide and six houses long.

In fact, the gunboats used as weapons are generally not that wide, because weapons require speed. In the field of shipbuilding, the larger the length-to-width ratio, the thinner the ship is, and the faster the speed is. This is an immutable law, because in fluid mechanics, thin shapes are subject to less resistance.

The length-to-width ratio of modern warships is generally around eight times, which is the most suitable shape for balance, displacement, and speed. The warships during World War II were even more abnormal. In order to pursue speed, they also had longer take-off decks, and the length-to-width ratio could reach twelve or thirteen times. If this kind of ship turns a little faster, it will easily capsize, which is simply insane.

The size set by Luo Chong is 20 meters long and 6 meters wide, with a length-to-width ratio of just over three times. The speed will definitely not be very fast, but compared with some famous ship types in history, the speed of this ship is not slow. After all, the rumored Zheng He treasure ship is a monster that is 120 to 130 meters long and more than 60 meters wide. The length-to-width ratio is not even twice. It looks like a wooden basin. It would be strange if it could be fast, but that thing is indeed large enough, and the deck area is one size larger than a standard football field.

In addition, in order to increase the speed of the ship as much as possible and improve the operability, Luo Chong decided to make a round bow and a semi-tunnel-style flat tail ship.

The round bow does not have the wave-breaking ability of the pointed bow, but this boat is not going to the sea, so there is no need to pursue this. The square-headed boat has relatively large resistance, so Luo Chong chose a more moderate round bow, of course, it is just rounder.

The tunnel-style flat-head stern mainly increases the operable area of ​​the stern. Not only can a rudder be installed in the middle of the stern, but also a rowing oar can be added on both sides of the steering gear as auxiliary power. Moreover, when this kind of stern is traveling against the current, the shape of the hull will cause the backward resistance to increase, which can play a disguised role as an uphill brake to prevent the car from slipping.

For the first type of sailboat of the Han tribe, Luo Chong took great pains. There is a thick stack of pencil sketches alone. Although his own drawings are not very standard, at least he can understand them.

This time he came to Liuyang County with the drawings, just to launch the boat he designed as soon as possible.

Considering the relatively small size of the ship, there is no need to dig a special dock with water. It is better to build a shipyard directly on the shore. The dry dock will be started, and it can be pushed into the water when it is ready.

In order to speed up the construction of ships, Luo Chong did not skimp on the limited iron production of the Han tribe this time. He specially allowed these ships to use iron nails. Not only iron nails are used to build ships, but also corresponding steel tools, anchors and other accessories are needed here.

The location of the shipyard is right on the shore, and the size is as large as a market town. The reason for such a large area is that it is not only used for shipbuilding, but also for wood storage. After all, freshly cut wood cannot be used to make ships. It must be dried in the shade for more than a year.

At the same time, a large row of wind-powered sawmills will be built here to provide wood for the production of sailboats.

There is also a small blacksmith shop. Although there is no blast furnace for iron smelting, there is an automatic forging hammer, which is perfect for making some tools and nails.

. . . . . . .

There will be another chapter later (ω)

(End of this chapter)