Chapter 173: "Mae Yun" and "Lucky Star"

Like the "Evergreen", this class of 80-horsepower warship is also an all-wooden steam-powered gunboat, the design drawings come from France, and the mother type is the same as the "Evergreen", the ship's materials and machinery are basically imported, and the chief engineer of the shipyard is supervised by the Frenchman Dashbeau. With a displacement of 515 tons, a hull length of 51.8 meters, a width of 7.48 meters, a cabin depth of 4.57 meters, and a draft of 3.39 meters, this 80-horsepower warship numbered as the "No. 2 Steamship" of the Shipmaster is much smaller than the No. 1 steamship in terms of displacement and external dimensions. It is precisely because of this that unlike the practice of 150-horsepower large steamers such as "Wan Nianqing" that focus on arranging cargo holds, 80-horsepower steamers have a smaller physique and little potential for transformation and loading, so they appear to be more specific in design, focusing on the functions of gunboats and reconnaissance ships, and are fortunate to become first-class specialized gunboats. In order to strengthen the function of the reconnaissance ship, at the suggestion of Lin Yizhe, the steam engine selected for the No. 2 steamship was a newly developed horizontal 150-horsepower small compound steam engine developed by France (because the French were not at ease with this new technology, they first let the Qianguo people try it first), and the use of a horizontal engine was convenient to control the installation position of the steam engine below the waterline, which was conducive to wartime safety. Single-shaft single-propeller propulsion, design speed 12 knots.

The bow line of the second steamer is not significantly different from that of the "Evergreen", and it still has a beautiful flying scissor bow. The second steamer was equipped with two mainmasts, located in front of and behind the chimney, the foremast with a transom girder, which could hang a square sail, and the rear mast only had a diagonal boom with a sylvestitin, and when sailing with sail power, the stooger could be turned to adjust the course of the warship. In addition, the second steamer had a forward mast in the bow, but the inclination was small and the length was short.

The armament of the second steamship consisted of a powerful 120 mm French breech gun (made in 9068) and four 75 mm Prussian breech guns (sampans), considering the full use of the firepower of the 120 mm gun as the main gun, this gun was installed on the open deck in front of the flybridge, and there were many tracks in different directions under the gun mount, and the guns could be pushed along the track to the port side of the warship as needed to strengthen the firepower of a certain side, this practice was called the mast type. The remaining four 75-mm secondary guns were mounted on the open deck sides behind the chimney.

The flybridge is located in the middle of the warship, across the high bulwarks at both ends, with a wooden wheelhouse at the bottom of the flybridge, and seafaring equipment such as compasses installed on the flybridge deck, and the spare steering wheel of the second steamer is presumably located on the aft deck.

Due to the small size of the ship and the fact that the ship's workers and technicians had gained a lot of experience in the construction of the "Evergreen", the construction of the second steamer appeared to be very fast. On June 21, 9069, when the Minister of Shipping, Shen Youdan, reported on the launch of the "Wan Nianqing" on June 10, the skeleton of the No. 2 steamship had been built, and the hull plate had been sealed by one-third, and it was only four months before the ship started construction. At the same time, Shen Youdan played and named the second steamer "Meiyun".

When the "Wan Nianqing" went north to Tianjin to be inspected by the imperial court, the hull construction of the "Meiyun" had been completed by two-thirds, and the boilers and engines were already in place. On 6 December, the Harbour Master held a ceremony to pay homage to Mazu, the god of the river, and the god of the earth, and the same method of launching the "Wan Nianqing" as at the beginning, the "Mae Yun" ship was successfully launched at noon on the same day. On the same day, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new ship next to the No. 2 slipway that was built by the ship to Taiwan, and the newly built warship was the No. 3 steamship of the same class as the "Mae Yun."

It took about 10 months from the start of construction to the launching of the "Meiyun," which was much faster than the construction period of the No. 1 steamship "Wannian Qing," and set a record for a ship built by a dry country. At the same time, what makes people marvel is that the speed at which the crews of the "10,000-year-clear" and "Meiyun" warships have run in with warships is very rare, and it can be said that the officers and men of the Qianguo Countries, who have no foundation in piloting large ships, are now able to smoothly sail their ships to the sea, which can be said to be a miracle.

On the day the "Mae Yun" was launched, the construction of the No. 3 steamer, which laid the keel and started construction, was quite fast because hundreds of ribs had already been manufactured two months earlier. The No. 3 steamship was still under the supervision of the chief engineer of the ship, Dash Bo. Shen Youdan has named the new ship "Fuxing". The rapid construction of the "Fuxing" shows that the shipyard workers were already familiar with the craftsmanship when they built this ship.

The "Fuxing" ship is of the same type as the "Meiyun", and the scale, power system and other parameters are the same, and the 75 mm breech gun made in Prussia is used, showing the improvement and progress of the design, and there are several slight differences between the "Meiyun" and the "Fuxing" in appearance. Both warships had gun doors on the broadside behind the aftermast, which were used to arrange the secondary guns. However, the position of the last set of gun doors was not the same, and the last set of gun doors of the lead ship "Mae Yun" was closer to the stern, and when the "Fuxing" was built, it seemed that this design was not suitable, and the gun doors were moved forward, and the position of the last group of gun doors of the "Fuxing" was higher than that of the "Mae Yun", under the davit near the rear mast.

In addition, the rope ladders on both sides of the mast of the "Meiyun" ship are connected in the same way as the "Wannian Qing", which is to add a supporting plate outboard, and the end of the rope ladder is fixed on the supporting plate through a three-eyed pulley, which is quite the ancient style of the sail warship era. The "Fuxing" ship, on the other hand, canceled the outboard brackets, and instead directly fixed the rope ladder to the bulwark through elastic screws. It is also enough to see the improvement of the "Fuxing" in relation to the lead ship "Mae Yun" when it was built.

When the two warships "Mae Yun" and "Fuxing" were completed one after another, the "Labert" type tugboat dock by the Shipmaster River was completed, and the Shipmaster had its own dock from then on.

The "Labert" type dock is neither an ordinary dry dock nor an ordinary floating dock, and its design was first created in France, at that time only France had built one, and the dock of the shipyard completely surpassed the former in terms of scale and sophistication. Originally, when planning the shipyard construction plan, Riyige and others recommended the shipyard to excavate and build a stone dry dock, but due to the unsuitable geology of the shipyard area at the beginning, it was prone to water seepage or collapse accidents, and after the stone dock was rebuilt in Qingzhou, because of the long construction time and huge cost of the dry dock, the shipyard funds were not very abundant at this time, so the construction time was shorter and the tugboat was more economical.

――――Dividing Line――――

Collect! Ask for recommendations! Click!