The dock was built on the edge of the Yangtze River, but it was built slightly higher than the water surface of the Yangtze River. When a large boat enters the water, water is diverted from the river behind it into the dock, and after the boat floats, the gate is opened and the boat and water are lowered into the river. If the ship is repaired, it is to wait until the tide rises, and the boat is dragged ashore with elephants and chains.

The main reason for this design is that the dock does not have better drainage equipment.

After nearly a decade of development, the shipbuilding industry of killer whales has already reached a certain scale. Outside of a research-oriented shipyard on the shores of Lake Gou, almost all of the ships used in the kingdom are produced here.

There are five workshops in one row. That is, five large ships can be built here at once.

Chaolin has sent a lot of graduates here over the years, and the literacy rate of workers here is almost the highest outside the administrative department. Therefore, the shipyard has basically achieved the production specifications of later generations. From planning to launching, a ship can be separated from all kinds of work inside, and the construction period can be shortened to a very short time, and the quality can be guaranteed.

The shipyard produces a 30-meter-long clipper in just two months.

Of course, this is when the various ingredients are sufficient.

The problem facing the shipyard now is this: lack of material!

In addition to the lack of wood and iron, there is a shortage of materials here. This includes fabrics for canvas, pastes for sealing gaps, coatings for waterproofing, and more.

Most of these other materials were produced by the craftsmen of Chaolin or Killer Whale Downstream, but because at least 20 30-meter-long boats were needed for this voyage, which greatly exceeded the production scale of previous years, the production and supply of raw materials downstream could not keep up. For example, the slurry for sealing the gaps is best composed of fish foam glue mixed with lime, etc. Such a slurry is viscous and waterproof. But this fish bubble doesn't mean that there are one. Especially now that the sea is frozen, fishing has basically stopped, and the production of this fish foam gum will inevitably not keep up.

In addition, the waterproof coating is basically only one kind of tung oil, and in the case of expanding production, it is naturally impossible to supply.

This is also a limitation of the backwardness of basic industries. If we develop in a few more years, find other alternatives or have a larger population, it will be a big deal to build such a small number of ships.

In the dock, the 30-meter-long clipper keeps the pattern of logs and waits quietly for the final tops.

Paw Pan introduced the situation in his not very fluent Chaolin words: "...... We have tried to mix fish skin glue with cement, and the fish skin is more than the fish bubble......"

"How's it going?"

Paw Pan shook his head and said: "It's not good, it may leak if you soak it for a month." But if we don't have fish bubbles, we're going to mix them up. Use fish foam glue on the bottom of the boat and this on the waterline. It is necessary to prepare more pulp to put in the boat and remedy it at any time. ”

In the past few years, the claw plate has also tried a lot of materials according to everyone's conjecture, in order to replace the fish foam glue, but there is no material that has a better effect than the fish foam glue, and there is no close connection. It seems that the plan given by Lin Ji is already the best under the current conditions.

Lin Ji shook his head and said: "Going to sea is not a joke, don't use this kind of pulp if it's not good." ”

The ship is a whole, if you encounter wind and waves and add the trouble of water leakage, the ship's ability to resist will decrease every minute, and if one is not good, the ship will be broken and people will die.

Preventing the claw disc from using inferior materials, Lin Ji naturally had to come up with something more useful. Lin Ji had been prepared for this, so when he arrived at the dock, he found an empty warehouse and took out buckets of materials.

Some of these materials are waterproof coatings, and some are relatively basic raw materials, which are basically asphalt products or their derivatives. Slurries and coatings are selected or blended out of these things.

The performance of these things is naturally much better than that of the original material such as fish foam. Once Lin Ji came up with these things, the problem to solve was to make sure that the materials could withstand seawater immersion and that they would perform at lower temperatures.

After making these things, Lin Ji also made out books related to asphalt chemicals, studied while reading books, and by the way, planned to build a small chemical plant near the dock. This is also one of the goals of Lin Ji who came here in person.

The stone beak came back half a month after the forest trail reached the killer whale.

I haven't seen him for a year, and he has lost a whole circle of weight, and he has also darkened a layer. There is no appearance of the prince of the kingdom at all. Only one pair of eyes was frighteningly bright.

Lin Ji checked the crew of the crew going out to sea, and found that almost all of them in the team were like stone beaks.

"Send me a gift for the king!" Stone Beak shouted, and his men brought boxes of bananas, coconuts and pineapples, buckets of sparkling gems, colorful animal skins, and sections of ...... Heavy wood......

"Where have you been?" Lin Ji knocked on the wood casually and recognized it as small-leaved rosewood.

"We first went north to the mouth of the Yellow River, and after staying for half a month, we estimated that you were almost there, so we went south." Stonebeak looks like he's going out to hang out.

Looking at the freshness of bananas and pineapples, this trip must be in a hurry.

"What about the casualties?" Lin Ji left the group with the stone beak and asked in a low voice.

Stone Beak's eyes were red and said, "There are not enough boats, we have capsized a small one here, and a few of them have not been saved." ”

The expedition had already begun to select personnel. The number is around a thousand. On long voyages, these people naturally can't be crammed into several boats. This is also the reason why it is expected to prepare twenty large ships for them.

Stone Beak brought all the sailors with him during training, and used small boats to make up for it when there were not enough big boats, which is why such an accident happened.

Lin Ji sighed secretly: "I don't think there's a need to rush this matter. Now a lot of things are not prepared. In another 10 years, the conditions will be very different from the present. Do you want to think about going later? ”

Ten years from now, shipbuilding will definitely be more developed. Naturally, all kinds of preparations will be more sufficient. It's hard to say, the forest traces have made a usable high-power steam engine come out. When the time comes, it will be much easier to explore the Americas.

"I'll run it now, and in ten years, maybe all the rubber planted will be usable." Don't convince me. ”

This trip to the Americas, in addition to exploring the world, naturally came with many purposes. One of them is to look for rubber trees, bring back a certain number of rubber seeds, and plant them on Luzon. As the basic raw material of industry, rubber has a wide range of applications. A small number of rubber forest traces can still be found in small towns, once the demand is too large, the amount of rubber in small towns can not be satisfied, and industrial production will definitely be restricted.

Lin Ji saw that the stone beak was resolute, and he did not persuade again. We can only prepare all kinds of work more fully to cover everything.