Chapter 19: Our First Cruise

Our shakedown cruise had some moments of excitement. We lost control of our sails a couple more times, and we ended up attaching TWO sheets to each corner, just like the jacking lines for the yards. That way we could gradually let one out while drawing the other in and the sail didn’t get loose.

We exercised the missile launchers a few times. Not much, as we only had ten missiles total and we might not be able to recover them. We carried a new and improved version of launcher. Even though they were smaller, we expected them to do the same job as the one that had sunk Mary’s Ransom. These two had the bows fit into a cradle on the end of the stock, and the bows tied in place by fairly light lines. There were a pair of much heavier lines which looped around the bow but were left loose instead of being tightened.

When we started to draw the cable back, as soon as there was force holding the bow against the main arm, we untied the light lines. When the launcher was fired, the bow would come off the cradle, but would be arrested by the heavier lines. Once the bow was done thrashing around, a team of crewmen could lift the bow and place it back in its cradle where the light lines would tie it in place again. No damage, and very quickly reset.

If we were in a hurry, we could simply leave the mounting lines in place. They would get snapped when we fired the launcher, but again replacing them wouldn’t take long at all. The crewman who was tying the bow in place would merely use a new line instead of the old one.

We saw the usual fishing boats on our way down the river, and for a few hours once we reached the sea. We just waved at them, if they were close enough. I didn’t want to bother them, if they were too far away to recognize. If we tried to close on them, they would assume we were pirates and try to escape. If they did something dangerous, like wreck their boat trying to scramble ashore, it would be all my fault.

There was no reason for that. Someday, Wrong Place would be recognized and trusted, but that would take a while. Someday, pirates would stay away from the island and the fishermen would assume that any unknown approaching ship was friendly, but that would take even longer. Generations, probably.

We spent the whole first day “exercising the crew” as we headed south. Actually, we were also exercising the officers and learning what the ship could do and what we had to do to make it happen. Part of that was learning how many men we needed where and doing what for each evolution.

We learned that we didn’t have any good way to reef, or partly take in, the sails. We had some lines that went from the yard down one face of the sail to the bottom and then up the other face to the yard again, and we could tie them short if we wanted less sail, but that really didn’t work well. We’d think on that and come up with a better answer.

Still, we got practice raising and lowering the sails, and jacking the yards around to different angles. If there was much wind at all we could lose control of the yard while we did this unless we took the sail up first, but that added a lot of time to the task. When we got back to Widemouth we were going to have to add a couple of small capstans and a LOT of cleats, to allow us to pull lines that didn’t want to move, and to slowly let other lines out without completely letting them go.

It soon became clear that we needed more crew. What we had was sufficient to row the ship, or to sail the ship. We didn’t, however, have enough to do both at once, and if we were tacking we needed the oars out to help us turn.

We also got to see who got seasick. If we were sailing in one direction, we’d cross the waves in a slow roll from one side to another. If we turned the ship while we were practicing our evolutions, though, we could make the roll speed up some, or even make the ship climb up and then crash down. Aldo and some of the guardsmen and militia were worst, as they had never been to sea.

By the time we gave up for the day we were all exhausted. We’d learned a lot, but no one could say that we were really experts at this yet. We’d work at it each day, weather permitting, and every day should see us getting better and faster at it.

We didn’t see any other ocean-going ships until the day after we rounded the corner and started heading east. On our third day at sea, in the morning when the sun came up there was a sail to the east where we were heading. It didn’t take long to see that, rather than fleeing from us as any rational cargo ship would do, it was coming on to meet us.

As they got closer I got Fil -who I thought of as ‘Phil’- and Mickey up on the quarterdeck with me. They were both from Mary’s Ransom’s original crew, and they had volunteered to serve under me as the best way to get out of Widemouth’s convict gang. They were onboard as general seamen, not trusted yet with weapons, and the missile launcher crews would probably kill them on the spot if they got too close to the launchers. Sabotaging the launchers at the wrong time would make us a lot easier prey, and the crew kept a close eye on both men.

When the ship got close enough Fil and Mickey agreed it was the Sea Fortune, out of Mountain Isle. It was a well known ship, with a good captain and crew and it always came back with slaves and other valuable cargo. I snorted at that. For some unusually low values of ‘good’, right.

Well, this was what we were out here for. Certainly, no minimal-crew post-construction shakedown cruise could be considered complete without a fight to the death with pirates who wanted to kill us and take our ship. I had Filo call everyone up on deck to talk it over.

“Men, it looks like we get to start clearing the seas of pirates a little earlier than we had planned. Fil and Mickey say that they recognize that ship. It is well known among the Pirate Isles for successful raids that always bring back slaves and loot. Now, we have a decision to make. We have the ability with our missile launchers to just sink that ship as we sail past it, and go on about our business. That’s what we’re out here for, to get rid of all the pirates.”

“Or, we can keep the launchers hidden under their tarps, and we can capture that ship. We’ll have to do it the hard way, with shields and swords and bows and arrows. We may take casualties. Some of us will get wounded, some of us may get killed. There’s no question who will win, though. No matter how many men they have, they don’t fight the way we do and they can’t beat us any more than those other pirates could defeat the Captain here and his attack force.”

“Now, why would we want to risk our lives capturing that ship? That’s easy. That ship is probably worth three or four hundred Conchs. The cargo it is carrying will only add to that value. If we sink it, it’s all gone, down to the bottom of the sea. If we capture it, though, we get to split that whole value among ourselves. I admit, I’m greedy and I’m in command here, it was my ideas and work and money that got us here and my share is going to be a lot bigger than yours, but what I’m thinking about is claiming one-quarter of its value to repay me. I think that one tenth of it should go to Widemouth, for providing us with the Guard and everything it took to get here.”

“The rest of it, about two thirds of whatever we can get for it, will go to the crew. If the regular men get one share, and the leaders like Michael and Garth get two shares, and the officers like the Captain and Filo get four or five shares, that’s still only going to be about 100 shares so each person will receive two or three Conchs for a nice morning fight. Anyone who is wounded will get double their share, and if anyone is killed their family will get triple their share.”

“I’m not going to order you into a fight without hearing what you want. Would you rather just sink them and continue on our way, or would you rather take a chance on getting wounded or killed and earn some real money today? Basically, I’m asking you to choose between being cowards or being greedy. Me, I’m greedy and I want to capture that ship. Please spend a few minutes talking among yourselves and then send your leaders and officers to me with your answer. Don’t take too long, though, as I don’t think the pirates will wait while you talk it over. They want to take this nice big ship away from us, and feed us all to the fishes.”

I didn’t actually feel rushed, everything took so LONG out here. The ships really weren’t very fast. Although, Filo kept reminding me that the ship almost certainly had oars like ours so it would be more maneuverable than us if we acted like a straight sailing ship. And a huge crew that could man the oars for far longer than we could by changing rowers every so often or even just double-man them for more speed.

They were going to want to close and board, while we wanted to keep our distance and kill all their fighters with archery. While we were talking about it, I asked for Garth and Jen, the two launcher leaders, to come up.

“We’ve been thinking about using the launchers to sink ships, by putting holes in the sides like we did this ship. Filo says that ship will be very maneuverable due to their oars, and we’re going to have a hard time keeping them from boarding us. Do you think that you could fire when the ship is rolled upward, and put one of your missiles through the railing where it will just kill the crew?”

Garth replied first. “It’s going to be very hard to hit an exact spot, between them and us both rolling like this. D’you think that we could have the ship on a heading where we have the slow roll, instead of this? We would be able to do better.”