A new-style boat, at this time, began to float slowly out of the dock under the buoyancy of the sea, and quickly stabilized.

On both sides of the dock, it was already crowded with the sea wolf tribe at this time, but the people who could come here to watch the ceremony at this time were basically the people with heads and faces among the sea wolf tribes, and at least one of the first mates had to be the worst.

Of course, there are also some craftsmen who belong to the shipyard, who are still busy on both sides of the dock, arranging the ropes, fixing the new ship in the dock, and adjusting the trimming of the boat.

By this time the weather had begun to cool down, and the sun was no longer as scorching as it had been in previous months, and the sun was dizzy, and the fresh sea breeze was blowing on the faces of everyone on the shore, and all of them had a happy and excited expression on their faces.

This day was a special day for Hyoten, because the first dhow he "designed" and built was finally completed and ready to be launched on this day.

This was ten days longer than his original plan to build it in three months, but even so, Yu Xiaotian did not blame Guo Fu and other shipwrights in these boats.

Because building this kind of ship was a new challenge for them after all, they had never come into contact with such a ship type, although Yu Xiaotian provided them with a ship model with quite exquisite workmanship, but when they began to build it in proportion, they still encountered many problems.

First of all, the shipwrights have never used such dense ribs on a boat, and the ribs have different curvatures depending on the part used, and when making the ribs, they use whole wood, which is also heated by baking, and bent into the desired shape by the upper clamps, and fixed to prevent the wood from opening up and destroying the hull structure after it is built.

This made the shipwrights scratch their heads, and thought of many ways to solve this problem, and for this purpose, they had to make a lot of fixtures for shaping, and also built a drying room to bake the ship's ribs, which alone consumed a lot of time.

In order to catch up with the time required by Yu Xiaotian, Guo Fu and other shipwrights can basically be regarded as working day and night, which Yu Xiaotian also saw when he inspected the shipyard every day, knowing that they did not deliberately delay and be lazy.

In addition, because it was the first time to build such a ship, many of the structural parts on this type of ship were not familiar to the shipwrights, and the construction sequence was different from their previous common Chinese boats.

In addition, in the sail used in this ship, they also encountered a lot of trouble, in the past they built Chinese-style ships, the sails used are Chinese-style hard sails, the main material is bamboo-based, but on this new type of ship, Yu Xiaotian requires very clear that soft sails should be used.

In the past, the craftsmen who were in charge of the sails in the dormitory scratched their heads, and they didn't know what kind of fabric was better to use to make this kind of sail.

Of course, Yu Xiaotian knows the sails of the Dao, so it is naturally the best to use canvas, and the sails of this kind of sloop schooner are very stressed, and the requirements for canvas are even higher, but where is he going to get canvas now? So far, there is no demand for canvas in China, and naturally no one will produce canvas.

Moreover, there are also requirements for the textile method of canvas, not just plain weave weaving, and the materials can not all be made of cotton, and it is more durable to use cotton and linen blends as much as possible.

And this kind of canvas for sails, so far, he can only find a way to solve it from the hands of Westerners, so for these canvases alone, he had to send people to Macao and Manila to find such canvases.

The hard work paid off, and after a lot of tossing, they got a batch of thick canvas from India from the Spaniards to solve the problem of sail fitting.

In short, when building this new ship, the craftsmen of the shipyard encountered a lot of trouble, but the Chinese craftsmen should not be regarded as illiterate and uneducated, but their ingenuity must not be ignored.

Once these craftsmen encounter problems, they are not only conformist, in fact, they are also very good at using their brains, and under the brainstorming of everyone, they finally come up with various ways to solve technical problems one by one.

Based on this alone, Yu Xiaotian has nothing to complain about them, just try to take time every day, go to the shipyard to have a look, understand the troubles and problems they encounter, if there is enough time, he will also stay to help think of a way, just look at this boat, in the hands of the shipwrights in the shipwright, like ants moving, little by little from some wood to parts, and then gradually assembled together.

Twenty days ago, the main construction of this ship was basically completed, and Yu Xiaotian was very excited at that time, and he couldn't wait to drive this boat out to sea immediately to test the performance of this boat.

However, the completion of the hull does not mean that the ship can be launched, because after the main body of the ship is completed, a lot of correction work has to be carried out, and the seam position of the whole ship must be sealed, that is, the twisting process.

China has a long history of shipbuilding, and has long solved the problem of hull sealing, just using very simple raw materials, such as plant ash, grease, hemp rope head, lime and other materials, you can seal the seam on the hull strongly.

After the hull twisting was completed, it basically had the conditions for launching the water, but considering that the ship had to be soaked in seawater and the hull had to be treated with anti-corrosion, the council hall purchased a large number of lacquer from the land, painted the ship again, and painted the whole body shiny.

This is the first sloop built by Seawolf itself, which can be regarded as completely built, and has the ability to be delivered for sea trials.

Yu Xiaotian specially asked people to choose a day as an auspicious day for the launch of the ship, and held a very grand launching ceremony for the ship.

This boat is also dressed in red by the shipwrights today, and a lot of firecrackers have been prepared, and when the dock door is opened, the firecrackers are fired, which is really lively.

But Yu Xiaotian was excited at the same time, but also a little uneasy, after all, he is just a ship model enthusiast, far from the real shipwright, theoretically he can copy some ship models in later generations, and there is no problem in making ship models, but if according to the ship model he made, if the real ship is made, whether it will work or not, he really has no bottom in his heart.

However, since he is still the big boss of the sea wolf as the "chief designer", although he has no bottom in his heart, he still has to hold the shelf, pretend to be confident, and accept the praise of his subordinates, while secretly carefully observing the situation after the ship is launched.

When the dock was filled with seawater, the ship began to float, on the whole, the boatwrights before launching, the preparation work was quite good, the overall balance of the ship was adjusted better, after entering the water, the ship quickly floated smoothly on the water, there was no forward or backward tilt and roll, the balance is obviously to meet the requirements of launching.

After the boat has floated, a dozen specially selected sailors begin to board the ship, where they arrange the sails and rigging of the ship, and carry out a general inspection of the boat, especially the bilge, as a focus on water leaks.

The people stood near the dock and watched the men go about their business, and after a while, the leader who led the group ran to the side of the ship and shouted loudly to Xiaotian's location: "Great master! The hull has been checked! No leaks found! All other inspections are normal, can I remove from the dock? ”

Yu Xiaotian was a little relieved, nodded to stop the noisy voices around him, and strode from a gangplank to the deck of the ship.

At the beginning of the construction, Yu Xiaotian told the shipwrights that this ship is a warship, and the materials must be sufficient, and it must be built strongly, so that it can withstand the bad weather and strong winds and waves at sea, and at the same time, it must ensure that there is enough force to cross when it collides with the enemy ship.

Therefore, the shipwrights did not cut corners when cutting the material, not only the materials were sufficient, but also the wood did not use relatively soft pine, but did not hesitate to use precious teak to build the ship, the thickness of the wood of the hull side panels and the deck of the ship, but also exceeded the general merchant materials more than twice the material, and in addition to the mortise and tenon structure for assembly, a large number of large iron nails were used for reinforcement.

In the load-bearing place of the structure, the materials are more sufficient, and there is a lot of material, leaving enough space, so when you step on this boat, you can feel the solidity of the boat under your feet, and the sound of landing is dull, indicating that the thickness of the deck is very sufficient.

In this way, although the overall empty weight of this ship has increased a lot, the sturdiness of this ship should not be underestimated, and it can even be called the strongest ship of the Seawolf so far.

The length of this ship is about 20 meters, the width of the ship is about 4 meters, and the height of the ship is no more than 4 meters.

Yu Xiaotian personally turned around the ship and checked the situation everywhere, because the ship was newly built, it looked very clean as a whole, and it had not yet been loaded with other things, and the upper part of the hull was flat, there was almost no superstructure, only the stern had a small stern, which was used as the helmsman's steering position, which was convenient for the helmsman to observe the navigation in front of the ship.

The ship still uses the rudder operation method, and Yu Xiaotian originally wanted to design a set of steering wheel operation mechanism for this ship to replace this backward vertical rudder operation method.

In this era, neither Chinese nor Western-style ships had yet to invent the common steering wheel operating mechanism in later generations, and the invention of the steering wheel operating mechanism was not invented until the 18th century.

Before that, whether it is a Chinese or a Western-style ship, it is basically a rudder or tiller to control the rudder, and this has great disadvantages, one is that the controllable angle of the rudder operation is relatively small, which is not very suitable for the operational flexibility of the ship at sea, and the helmsman is blocked by the stern when operating, and can not see the situation in front of him, and can only adjust the rudder under the instructions of others on board.

In the event of a strong wind or a sharp turn, it is difficult for a helmsman to control it, and sometimes it takes three or four people to control the rudder to operate it.

Of course, Yu Xiaotian knows how to solve it, as long as he "invents" a set of steering wheel operating mechanism, this problem can be easily solved, making the operation of the ship easier and more effective, and at the same time improving the maneuverability of the ship.

(It's almost the end of the month, brothers, please remember to keep the monthly pass for the beginning of the month!) Thank you very much! ）