'Do you know, the sails of the boat?' Visible? For Li Chen's question, the bow of the ship Xin was flustered for a long time, and Li Chen then asked, "If you want to change the sail to that style, can you?" ’

Actually, a certain once worked as a sailor on the Hu boat for a while. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info', the bow of Xin seemed to remember something, a look of nostalgia. On his face, which was rough and rough by the sea breeze, there was a smile, which was surprising, and it turned out that this person could also laugh.

'Not good. The bow of the ship did not remember for long, and shook his head, "According to the experience of contemptible people, this kind of sail will not be better than the existing ship." ’

'What's the explanation?' A certain asked Liang Kuai. He couldn't figure it out. Li Chen squinted, Liang Dutou, whose real name is Liang Kuai, was a little embarrassed, and said that everyone is like this, and no one has ever asked why.

Liang is fast, not cool. Who doesn't want the ship to run a little faster? So he was named Liang. By the way, his grandfather's name is Liang Buxiu. It's not that the old man doesn't repair, it's Liang Buxiu, because Liang Kuai's grandfather hopes that the boat he built can last a lifetime, so he calls Liang Buxiu...

Do you know why such sails are used? Captain Xin didn't answer the rhetorical question, Li Chen shook his head, he knew, but he didn't know if it was correct, so he simply chose to shake his head.

Because the wind direction is changeable, from north to south, from spring to winter, the wind direction is often changing, even in the morning and evening. ’

Do you know that the coastal wind is known as the eight-sided wind, and the wind direction is changeable, and the soft sail of the Hu boat cannot withstand such changes, so it is necessary to use this kind of hard sail. This kind of sail can also be turned at will, depending on which direction the wind is coming from. ’

'Soft sails, hard sails, oh yes, I forgot to say that Hu boats are soft sails, this kind of sail, can be made relatively large, but useless. It's not that no one has tried it, it's not easy to use, and it's inconvenient to turn. You can't go against the wind, you can only go with the wind. Even when downwind, the back sail will block the sail of the front sail. It must be oblique, and when the wind is slanting like this, the sails will be the most strained. ’

Diagonally? Li Chen recalled the Age of Discovery, yes, this kind of soft sailing ship is so troublesome, it must eat the wind at an angle of 45 degrees, so as to have the maximum sail power.

'I waited for the Tang ship, and the hard sails we used were a little smaller, but they ate enough to eat the wind, and they did not interfere with each other. You can use a little canvas and straw mats, but Hu Shang's ships will not work, because they are all soft sails and have no support, and if the sail is broken, the whole sail will be useless. ’

The biggest trouble is. ', the Tim shook his head, which seemed to bring back bad memories for him, 'The soft sail is a lot of trouble to operate, and it takes a long time to train. The hard sail is simple to operate and requires only a small number of people to operate. ’

'Soft sails, alas, soft sails are too dangerous for sailors, because soft sails carry the canvas to the top, so whether it is raised or retracted, sailors must climb onto the mast. Xin Chuantou sighed for a while, "I don't know how many people die every year because of this." The crew who just ran the ship doesn't know, but after running for a year, many people will want to quit their jobs, it's too dangerous. ’

After listening to Captain Xin's words, Li Chen recalled what he had learned and the post he had seen on the forum about which was a good one, a hard sail or a soft sail.

The content is to argue about the different types of sails used in the East and West, hard sails and soft sails, which one is superior. As we all know, Westerners use soft sails, plus Western countries have long-term sailing experience, but what about China?

Although the shipbuilding technology of the Chinese far exceeds that of Western countries, China is not a seafaring nation. Although China has long had the experience of voyages, during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to communicate with the West, he found a country that could attack the Xiongnu from behind the Xiongnu. On land, Zhang Qian led to the Western Regions, and on the sea, he also sent a fleet to sail all the way to the east coast of Africa.

In the Ming Dynasty, there was also Zheng He's treasure ship, which also went to the east coast of Africa. Even, in modern times, there are arguments that Zheng He's fleet arrived in the Americas earlier than Columbus. This argument is still argued by Westerners, although it has never been recorded in the history of the Ming Dynasty. Anyway, no one says now that it was Columbus who discovered America.

The first to arrive in the Americas was probably the Vikings. Vikings, as you should have heard, a pirate people. However, they also have the spirit of taking risks, or rather, they have the spirit of taking risks and making difficulties, and they support them to explore everywhere, from Russia in the east to the Americas in the west, they have their footprints, and they also explore the northern part of the Americas, and explore where to grab it.

Unfortunately, with such achievements, the Chinese have never been a seafaring people. In Chinese history, that is, the Song Dynasty, especially the Southern Song Dynasty, really attached importance to navigation. Even in the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu and forbidden sea policies made the Chinese's navigation career unguarded.

This gives people the illusion that the Chinese do not know how to sail, so the soft sail of the Westerners must be better than the hard sail, and the uninterrupted navigation for hundreds of years must be correct. But in fact? Is it true that Chinese hard sails are inferior to Western soft sails? Not really.

Li Chen carefully recalled those vague memories, there were many advantages and disadvantages of soft and hard sails, and Captain Xin said it. Li Chen remembered a lot of things he hadn't mentioned or didn't realize.

In fact, in terms of the efficiency of the sail, the hard sail is greater than the soft sail. The soft sail should not look big, but a lot of wind power is wasted. Because of the mutual occlusion, and the application of Bern's law, soft sails are relatively lacking, so hard sails actually outperform soft sails.

If nothing else, let's take the sailing boats of the 20th century, sailing competitions, many of which use hard sails. Hard sails are strong enough and will not be deformed, so they can make good use of the wind, or they can be made smaller, so that the sails will not interfere with each other, each sail is as full of wind as possible, and even, hard sails are easier to operate than soft sails.

Well? You say that Westerners are not stupid, Westerners have always maintained their soft sails, and there must be their advantages. Of course, there are also yes, as mentioned earlier, the soft sail can be made very large, so that in the use of wind, it can be increased a little.

Isn't it okay to have a Chinese hard sail? Mainly because the Chinese hard sail can be rotated very flexibly, so there is no way to use the support cable, the soft sail is a cross sail, can not rotate, you can use the support cable to increase the height of the mast, so as to increase the sail power.

Thinking of this, Li Chen gritted his teeth, is this a reason? Because it is not possible to use a spur, it is not possible to increase the sail power by increasing the area of the sail as in the Western style sail.

Of course not, it's just a technical issue. What really makes the Chinese hard sail unable to replace the Western soft sail is because of the technical problem, if China can continue to research and continue to develop navigation, this kind of problem is not insurmountable.

Since no one does it, I will do it, I don't believe it, I can't make Chinese hard sails sail to the world in my lifetime. (To be continued.) )