Chapter 142: Drydocking

The timber for the slipway and dock frame came from Bopu Lumber Yard. Beyond the coastal wood harvested from the mangroves, there was a considerable stockpile of beams and pillars salvaged from the Gou Manor demolitions—material perfectly suited for shipyard construction.

Standard slipways called for thirty-by-thirty-centimeter American pine logs, which were unavailable here. Ordinary wood could substitute, but forty-meter lengths were rare, necessitating multi-piece splicing. The splicing itself posed no challenge for the Mechanical Department, though approval was another matter—any use of metal materials now required sign-off from the Planning Committee.

For simplicity's sake, they opted for a longitudinal layout. Electric winches had a tendency to overload and burn out during drydocking operations, a common occurrence even in professional shipyards. Given their inexperienced crew, camel-type boiler-driven capstans offered a safer alternative.

With the winch problem solved, the greatest remaining challenge was the "ground dragon"—a massive horizontal pile buried underground that served as the anchor point when the capstans hauled ship hulls ashore. This component bore enormous tension and had to be engineered accordingly.

Modern shipyard ground dragons used reinforced concrete or concrete-filled steel pipe, though wooden ones had been common throughout history. The requirements were stringent: high strength, rot-resistant, generally hardwood thirty to fifty centimeters in diameter, at least three meters long, and extensively dewatered and preserved.

Wu Kuangming from the Lumber Section finally located suitable material in the stockpiles—some Southeast Asian hardwood nearly fifty centimeters in diameter, highly rot-resistant. It could be used directly without any treatment.

"This stuff could make coffins," Wu Kuangming said reluctantly. "Go ahead and use it for your ground dragon."

"What—you planning on landlord gentry treatment for yourself?" Yan Quezhi teased.

"Heh, not that." Wu Kuangming shook his head. "But anyone who works with timber knows: the wood wealthy families chose for their coffins was always the finest—won't rot whether buried in earth or submerged in water. Giving it up feels like cutting away my own flesh."

Once all the equipment was installed, preparations for drydocking began in earnest. This was skilled and dangerous work—shipyards commonly suffered casualties during the process.

"Everyone listen up!" Wu De addressed the assembled personnel. "Drydocking is dangerous. During operations, you watch everything constantly. If a cable hits you—you're dead."

He ran through the various precautions, though in truth, Wu De himself only half-understood the process. He had at least witnessed and participated in fishing-boat drydocking back in his village, and beyond that, he had an ancient "Simple Ship Repair Manual" recovered from the computers to work from. Success would depend entirely on Wu De's memory and the accuracy of that book.

Everything removable was stripped from the vessel—even the masts came down to lower the center of gravity. The towing cables were steel wire salvaged from the Fengcheng, as the lumber factory's homemade hemp ropes had proven insufficient in tensile tests. The slipway was slathered with lard, the only room-temperature-solid fat Wu De could obtain. The sheer quantity required had left Wu Nanhai heartbroken—how many pigs had it taken to render this much!

Fifteen or sixteen people gathered at the drydocking site. Though the work was dangerous, Wu De hadn't called on commune members to help. This operation demanded constant communication, and however good the commune members' Mandarin might be, it was a different era's language. A single misunderstanding or delay could mean deaths.

"Start!"

The steam engine was already heated. At Wu De's command, the winch began its slow rotation. The ground dragon's chains pulled taut. Steel cables creaked against the pulleys. Wooden ships had limited structural strength, so the cables were girdled around the stern rather than attached to any single point.

As the capstan turned, the steel cables stretched fully tensioned with ominous creaking sounds. Wu De's heart clenched with worry—eighty to ninety percent of drydocking casualties involved snapped tow lines. When they broke, the highly tensioned cables would whip outward like lashes, striking nearby workers and sending them flying. Survival afterward was pure luck.

The cables had come from the Fengcheng and were theoretically adequate for a hundred-ton wooden ship. Still, those sounds were enough to fray anyone's nerves.

"Ship's moving forward!" The observer's report crackled through the walkie-talkie. Two-thirds of the drydocking crew had been positioned around the area specifically for observation, watching for any deviation.

As the steam capstan wound, the ship rocked and began its slow journey from water toward shore. The vessel bobbed considerably in the waves—an unsettling sight.

"Slow the winch—steady now." Wu De's reminders came constantly over the walkie-talkie. "Everyone watch the ship's direction. Keep it aligned with the slipway."

The first approach came in off-center. In professional shipyards, specialized workers handled this alignment. For amateurs, first-try success was impossible.

"Don't panic—we'll try again. Everyone check your cables."

Every retry demanded a fresh cable inspection. Failing to dock only meant losing a ship, but accidents that killed people could never be undone.

Nearly five hours of repeated efforts followed—just getting the ship properly aligned had left everyone's throats raw from shouting—before the vessel finally came to rest stable on the dock frame. Wu De skipped any celebration, immediately directing everyone to recover the lard from the slipway and surrounding area, storing it in clay jars. They would need it again for re-launching.

"Good heavens, this oil's turned pitch-black!" The Navy people stared at it helplessly. "Disgusting!"

"Somehow smells like fried food to me."

"That's friction heating. Don't tell me you've got an appetite after seeing this."

"Can this stuff actually be reused? Didn't they say it has to be pure? There's sand all through it now."

"Melt it down, filter it again. Apparently Wu Nanhai came by specifically to say that if it can't be reused, we're to return it to him."

"The cafeteria's going for gutter oil too!"

"Supposedly it's for soap making. But black soap? I'll pass."

The repairs took less than a week. Every bullet hole was caulked; larger damage was reinforced with new wood. Hull fouling was scraped clean and tung oil coating applied. The Navy planned to add cannons—or at minimum, cannon positions. Originally, the pirates had mounted their guns on deck, cutting ports into the gunwales and covering them with minimal protective shelters. Now the Mechanical Group's weapon enthusiasts relocated the gun positions below deck to lower the center of gravity: four positions per side, with room for two or three more on the future deck. The downsides were obvious—insufficient freeboard meant heavy weather would splash seawater through the gun ports. But with proper port shutters, this wouldn't pose serious problems outside of combat.

The real issue was that they had no cannons. The Ballista's problems had been fully exposed by now. The weapon's nature meant high-trajectory lobbing, which created aiming difficulties. Additionally, the firing rate was abysmal: two gunners cranking both sides needed over a minute to reset the tension, with considerable physical exhaustion to boot. And finally, the Ballista was far larger than any cannon of equivalent power.

"What's strange about that?" Chen Haiyang said. "If Ballistae had really been as magical as some Mechanical Department people claimed, why did every navy in history replace them with 'crude,' 'heavy,' 'dangerous' cannons? Obviously even the worst cannon outperformed the best Ballista."

"We need real cannons!" Meng De howled. "Even muzzle-loaders!"

Meng De had earned recognition for sailing the ship into port—briefly surrounded by flowers and applause. But now the big ship couldn't move anymore, and he had devolved from spotlight captain to Fengcheng caretaker. Beyond basic ship maintenance, his most important duty was patrolling the bay with small boats.

The appearance of the Deng Yingzhou had finally shown him the possibility of returning to center stage. But lacking traditional sailship knowledge, Lin Chuanqing had seized the captain's position. The Deng Yingzhou was now the North America faction's domain—and Meng De had no interest serving under them. His conclusion was clear: only building a fleet offered any path to advancement. Now with a new ship on the horizon, he tirelessly promoted his "fleet" plan, advocating for a steam-sail gunboat coastal fleet, demanding increased Navy budget and personnel—even requesting multi-turret battleships. The call quickly gained support from hundreds of transmigrators, including many Industrial Department members.

The Committee ordered the Military Department's staff section to evaluate the proposal. After comprehensive analysis of local garrisons, pirates, equipment, and transportation capabilities, their conclusion was unambiguous: whether facing pirates or Ming military forces, large-scale attacks would primarily come via sea transport, with land routes following the coastline roads. The transmigrators couldn't immediately establish control over Qiongzhou Strait's sea supremacy—but they needed coastal mobility capability. With their limited forces, mobility was especially crucial.

(End of Chapter)