In England, where there is a lot of rain and fog, it is rare to see a cloudless blue sky. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info warm spring sun drives away the wet cold, the gentle sea breeze brings bursts of refreshment, and the rippling sea is refreshing. At the mouth of the River Thames, the busy waterway is a small reflection of the pinnacle of the world's empire, and the famous buildings that stand on both sides of the river reflect the depth of the maritime power. At this time, Great Britain was like a middle-aged man with high spirits, and the accumulation of experience and wealth had reached an ideal level - the country was rich and the people were strong and orderly; Outside, the position is consolidated and there are many servants. There is probably no better state for a country.

In Great Wakeling, east of the Thames estuary, the shores are bustling with people, with colourful flags waving on the water and motors roaring, making a super hodgepodge of boats waiting to compete. According to the groups decided by lottery, nearly 700 participating boats competed in batches for the preliminary round. Due to the uneven performance of the participating boats, most of the classes are not too competitive, but the scene is quite interesting - there are collisions or even collisions due to lack of avoidance, forced explosion and capsizing, continuous anchoring and insisting on running the whole distance, and the hull leaking and sinking, giving people the feeling of a black comedy, without the excitement of racing at all.

The prize money has been increased tenfold compared to previous editions, and the format has been temporarily adjusted, but the route of the King's Cup has not changed much, and the whole course is still a round trip along the flat coastline of Great Wackering, and the winner with the shortest 10 nautical miles will win. After two full days of turmoil, the huge group preliminaries of the project finally came to an end. Of the 60 boats that made it to the finals, the lowest time in the preliminaries was 16 minutes and 40 seconds, which is an average speed of 36 knots, which can be easily achieved by the steam clippers who performed well at the same time. The top finishers in the preliminaries were the Philip brothers from the United States, whose boat had a rather original look – a low, wide and flat hull that resembled a large shell. The big shell drove four underwater propellers with four engines, and was a huge source of noise at full speed, swaying left and right at the slightest wind and waves, and this strange-looking creature ran the whole distance in only 11 minutes and 47 seconds, with an average speed of more than 50 knots, and no steam-powered ship at the same time could reach such an astonishing speed.

In second place in the overall preliminary round was last year's King's Cup winner, Prince Gustav of Sweden, who ran 48 in the Nield speedboat. The average speed of 7 knots is only half a minute slower than the big shell from the United States. In third and fourth place in the heats were the Italian and French boats, with the British boat finishing fifth, while the yacht Siren from the Friedrichs Royal Shipyard in Germany was sixth with an average speed of 45. 5 knots. Natsuki was not disappointed by the seemingly uncompetitive results in the preliminaries, and given that there was no pressure on the preliminaries group, he deliberately arranged for two pilots to ride the boat and filled the speedboat with a fuel load, and the reserved performance saved "The Kraken" from being in the spotlight too early. Of the 60 speedboats that made it to the finals, only three were tandems, one was at the bottom of the list and was destined to be the foil to the final, one was the sixth-place "Kraken", and the third was the big shell of the Philip brothers, who obviously needed two or more crew members to steer this rather complex monster.

On the day of the final, the Thames estuary was shrouded in thick fog early in the morning. With members of the British royal family and many distinguished guests present, the organizers had no choice but to postpone the final from 9 to 9:30 in the morning, and then from 9:30 to 10 in the future. For the long hour, everyone tried to be patient, but few people were able to truly calm down, except for the vendors who peddled cigarettes and snacks. After 10 a.m., the fog on the sea finally began to dissipate, and the organizers issued a third and final live notice that the final would be held at 10:20 a.m., and those who missed it would be automatically disqualified.

Due to the fog on the sea, the 60 boats that qualified for the final could only wait for instructions in the designated berthing area, and when the announcement of the horn was announced, the roar of the engine started one after another. In the middle of one of the docks, Uncle Wiesel, dressed in a black suit, watched worriedly as his assistants made one last inspection of the Kraken speedboat, and in the front seat of the cockpit was not the chief pilot Gord or his first alternate emir, but the talented Prince Joachim, the youngest son of the German Emperor. With an empty rear cockpit equipped with auxiliary control equipment to deal with some contingencies, the speedboat's fuel tanks are half loaded, and the ballast tanks on both sides of the hull are empty, which is the lightest state of the Kraken - Prince Joachim is the lightest of all the people who can handle the Siren.

Before the speedboat departed, the dutiful Uncle Wiesel made one last effort: "Your Highness, the record doesn't matter, how can we all win, you don't have to take this risk at all." ”

Natsuki smiled at him: "Don't worry, I can handle such a game." If there is an accident on the way, I promise that I will not be strong! ”

Looking at the young man's confident smile, the solemn look on the uncle's face finally eased, and he nodded. When the boy sailed away from the trestle, he made a series of crosses on his forehead and chest with his right hand, and muttered the words in fragments.

As the organisers wanted, the results of the King's Cup have become the hottest topic in London in the last two days, and even the mainstream newspapers have published them in detail, but this has not had any real impact on the upcoming final - the sixty boats are listed on the starting line in no particular order, and when they see the starting signal, all they have to do is go straight forward, wait for the halfway buoy and then turn around, and the first to return to the starting line is the champion of the race.

Although the organizer's arrangement reflects the principle of fair and impartial competition, when the boat is running at high speed, a slight negligence or uncontrollable accidental factor of the driver can cause collisions between the boats. Judging from the preliminaries, the probability of an accident after a half-turn is particularly high. In order to avoid these unexpected factors affecting the normal performance of the "Kraken", and for the sake of his own safety, Natsuki deliberately chose the farthest starting position from the coast.

I don't know if it was for the same consideration or because he wanted to have a face-to-face battle with himself, Gustav drove his "Neelde" to Natsuki's side.

Through the tempered glass hatch, also made by Siemens, the two princes looked at each other and smiled in friendliness.

At 10:20 a.m., three green flares rose into the air from the direction of the coast.

The surface of the sea was instantly filled with the roar of machinery of varying tones.

With the same operating mode and almost the same power output, the "Kraken" and "Neelde" started together. Natsuki was not distracted by the position of the other boats, and only looked at Gustav's "Neelde" out of the corner of his eye. Since winning his first sprint trophy, the Swedish prince has been so enthusiastic that he has not even wanted to miss the races held across the ocean, and in just a few years, he has won almost an entire house of trophies, and he has a wealth of experience in flying speedboats. In the past year, Natsuki has spent most of his time and energy on the Naval Academy's coursework and boat design, and he has sailed far less often than before, and is bound to be inferior to his opponents in terms of the integration of man and boat.

Sure enough, the Neelder, which was built on the basis of the Thunderbolt, took the lead in the initial stages. When he glanced at the square stern of the "Nild" out of the corner of his eye, Natsuki did not lose his mind because of this, but calmly increased his gear. Listening to his ears, he heard that the roar coming from the "Neeld" was obviously different from Daimler's 125-horsepower six-cylinder engine, which was the standard configuration of the later navy-type "Thunderbolt" speedboat, and was also the initial configuration of the "Neelder". In view of the fact that Daimler's new engine was only available a month ago, Natsuki tried his best to get the first engines for the Royal Shipyard, and the Swedish prince should have purchased high-power engines from other countries to upgrade the power of the "Nielde". When it comes to the internal combustion engine, the Germans are not alone, and the United States, Britain and France are in a similar state of technological development.

As the pointer of the tachymeter crossed the 50 mark, the cockpit where Natsuki was already filled with a powerful roar. From the outside, the "Kraken" has little in common with the Thunderbolt and Thunder series, its hull is short and thick, the two-seater cockpit with a narrow section is located in the middle of the hull, two strange long cylinders are placed on both sides of the hull, when sailing at high speed, the skateboard shape of the lower front of the hull makes the whole bow rise proudly, and when it encounters a little wave, the whole boat rises and falls like a dolphin jumping into the water, and the white waves stir up around most of the hull except the bow, forming a beautiful and spectacular wave-breaking spectacle.

Driving on the calm sea, this imitation of the shape of the F1 racing boat and equipped with two 140 hp six-cylinder gasoline engines of the cutting-edge speedboat quickly showed its extraordinary skills, its superior high-speed performance made the "Nielder" only maintain a slight lead for half a minute, in a blink of an eye, the stern, bow and then bow of the "Neelde" all withdrew from Natsuki's sight, and the open sea in front of Natsuki suddenly brightened his mood. He settled down, put aside the distractions in his heart, and drove the boat with full concentration. After a while, the pointer on the speedometer had quietly crossed the red line corresponding to the 60, and the jumping pace of the "Kraken" with light load reached the extreme, and on a few occasions, Natsuki even felt that the speedboat was flying away from the sea for two or three seconds.

Unconsciously, the half-range buoy with horizontal stripes and colored stripes came into view, Natsuki gently shook his head and glanced to the left, there was no trace of the speedboat on the water surface between the "Kraken" and the coast, the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned, and the throttle was slightly loosened, and the steering wheel was tightly controlled to make the "Kraken" pass through the middle and left position of the two buoys in front of him, and then completely released the throttle, directly lowered a speed gear, and turned the steering wheel right 90 degrees at the same time. The extremely agile "Kraken" hull suddenly tilted to the right by more than 45 degrees, and the synchronous centrifugal was like an invisible hand pressing Natsuki to the seat, and at this moment, the glass hatch on his right hand had almost been attached to the surface of the sea where the waves were rolling, which was definitely an incomparably wonderful sensory experience for ordinary people.

*****

To correct, from the beginning of the 19th century, the Swedish royal family was no longer of Nordic origin, but entered the Bernadotte dynasty, founded by the famous French general Bernadotte under Napoleon. Thank you for the reminder from kingemperor.

(End of chapter)