After sailing out of the estuary of the Yazi Lake, the fleet began to turn west south and sail south along the ocean currents and side winds. Starting from July 29, the fleet crossed the estuary of the La Plata River, the Bay of Santa Mathias, and continued south along the long Patagonian coastline. Finally, on August 10, it arrived at the snowy Port of the Horse Island.

The South Atlantic Ocean is violent in winter, especially the Baleen Whale Port, which is extremely harsh all year round. The sea here is full of westerly winds of level 5 or above, and huge surges are surging in the inlet channel all year round. If you are not careful, you may hit the reef or be stranded, which tests the captain's driving skills.

Led by the flagship "Red Trout" frigate, the ships lowered most of the sails one after another, carefully controlling the direction and sailing into the port with difficulty along the current. Just as everyone was nervously controlling the sails, the multi-purpose ship "Balang" had already lowered the sails early and then started the main engine. At this moment, the slender hull, in the "swinging" paddling sound of the paddle paddle at the tail and the rolling black smoke from the chimney, slowly passed through this section of sea water at a low speed of more than 2.5 knots and flowed into the relatively calm berth of the Barewhale Port Pier.

After the "Polang" shut down the main engine and lowered the double anchors from the front and tail, Zhang Xiao walked out of the engine compartment with satisfaction. As he walked up the way, the "Polang" shut down the main engine for most of the time, and moved along the current with only the sails, maintaining a "low speed" of 4-6 knots throughout the journey. That is, not far from the Bareback Whale Port, after obtaining the permission of Lieutenant Li Yi, the commander-in-chief of the fleet, Zhang Xiao turned on the steam engine and slowly pressurized the boiler. Finally, relying on pure steam power, he safely passed the waterway with many swells.

Facts have proved that in the weather or sea conditions, steam-powered ships have better handling and safety. In areas with changing water flow and rapid surges, such as the waterways entering the port of Baleen Whale Port, such as the Strait of Magellan, the superiority of steam-powered ships is unparalleled. However, it would be great if the paddle wheel that drives the ship forward could be replaced with propellers. The efficiency of paddle wheels is sufficient at low speeds, but it is still a little slower when sailing in the ocean. Unfortunately, the shipyard has never solved the problem of underwater sealing of the propeller spindle, so it can only be dealt with with using paddle wheels first, and after solving the technical difficulties in the future, it will be unified to be converted into propeller drives.

The load capacity of the "Borang" is about 730 tons. At this time, in addition to the materials transported in the cabin, it also loads about 300 tons of refined coal. If steam power is used (assuming there is no fault in the middle), and the coal consumption is 160 kilograms per hour and the speed is 3 knots, it can theoretically sail more than 5,600 nautical miles.

What is the concept of more than 5,600 nautical miles? Starting from Dongfang Port, across the South Atlantic Ocean, and then reach the South African Hezhong Port. The distance between them is only three or four thousand nautical miles. This means that the East Coast Republic of China can no longer see the currents and the wind direction, but directly approach the South African colonies from the local area. Of course, these coals are only available for one way. If you want to travel smoothly, you also need to set up a large coal storage base in Hezhong Port to add coal to passing steamships.

However, the actual situation is not that complicated. It is not that straight for Hezhong Port. The wind direction is not right at all times along the way. In many cases, sails can still be used to provide some power for navigation. Therefore, it does not take much time to cross the Atlantic Ocean between the local and South Africa. On average, the entire journey can still reach a speed of 4-5 knots. In this way, the time it takes to travel from Dongfang Port to South Africa is only a month, which is more than ten days shorter than taking the southern route. In this way, coal is basically barely enough. If the local area improves the efficiency of some steam engines, loads more coal in the cabin or replaces thermal coal with higher combustion calorific value, it will be safer.

Zhang Xiao was extremely happy with this understanding. If the "Polang" really succeeded in a long-distance cross-sea voyage, it could be regarded as a milestone in the industrial history of the East Coast Republic of China. Well, should we try the hybrid sailing of the aircraft sail on the next step on the way to Hezhong Port? If it is successful, then there will be no big problem to apply to the Ministry of Transport to build the "Zhunbo" ship of the same class that is installed on both sides with a paddle wheel.

When the Modern Special Vehicle Factory reported its plans, it reported two ships of the same class in one go. One of them was the "Polang", and the other was the "Zhubo". The data of the two ships were exactly the same. The only difference was that the "Polang" only installed a paddle at the tail, while the "Zhubo" installed a paddle on each side of the waist of the ship. Wei Hua, the director of the Modern Special Vehicle Factory, planned to build both ships and then test to see which ship is more powerful.

However, at that time, the Railway Administration of Transportation Commissioner Xiao Bailang's "own son" was vigorously launching the railway, consuming a lot of hardwood resources transported from New China. In addition, the hungry navy began to no longer insist on using Brazilian mahogany to build warships, but instead used hardwoods from New China to make guard gunboats, so the wood resources suddenly became tense. Later, no surprise, the plan for the multi-functional ship of the "Zhubo" was shot dead by Xiao Bailang, and only approved a license to build a ship for the modern special ship factory. However, the situation is different now. As long as Zhang Xiao can prove that the "Balang" is indeed excellent in performance, can undertake a variety of tasks, and the most important thing is to effectively shorten the time for crossing the ocean, the Ministry of Transport will definitely not stop itself from building a new steam-powered ship.

Moreover, the reason why this kind of ship is called a multi-purpose ship is really because it undertakes multiple functions. For example, specially designed chains to measure water depth are installed on the ship, large fishing trawls operated by steam winches are installed on the ship, and small seawater desalination devices are specially installed on the ship to steam and cook sea water, and a small surgical operating room is even opened next to the captain's room on the second floor of the stern. In addition, a total of 18 artillery pieces are installed on the deck of the ship, including two powerful 24-pound naval guns.

Some steel plates were hung on important parts of the ship, which greatly enhanced the protection of the ship and also made the ship's own weight reach more than 300 tons. From here we can easily find that this "Balang" multi-functional ship was actually tailor-made to explore unfamiliar routes. All of its functions were set up for sea adventures. In other words, the ship's survivability at sea is much stronger than that of ordinary ships.

As the fleet passed through the estuary of the La Plata River, Zhang Xiao ordered the sailors to use large trawls to catch a net of fish. The fish were fresh and delicious rat-tailed cod, and the caught fish began to be processed in a special cabin on the spot. After leaving enough portions for the whole boat for two days, the remaining fish were cleaned and scrambled with salt to store food.

The crew members of the small seawater desalination device also tried to start the operation. The seawater was steamed in the device, and the water vapor generated was condensed and collected in the pipeline, and then it could be used as drinking water. The only disadvantage of this device may be that it consumes too much coal and cannot be used for a long time, so it can only be used for emergency response. In addition, the water vapor discharged from the steam boiler when the pressure is reduced by a steam engine is also collected through special pipelines for use next time. After all, it is sailing on the sea, and it is a little bit to save fresh water.

This ship is currently owned by the South China Sea Transportation Company and the Navy Department, but it is estimated that it will be allocated to the Navy soon. Isn’t the development and exploration of Far East routes the "Polang" best at?

After a few hours of tossing, the other four ships finally anchored safely in the dock of Barewhale Harbor. The berths in the port were empty, and not many people were willing to come to this place where birds were not shit at this time. Occasionally, all the ships of bad merchants came to the port to shelter the wind.

The village head of Balew Whale Port and former Army Sergeant Matthias personally came to the dock to welcome the local fleet. Because he heard that the local people would transport him a batch of immigrants this time, you should know that after so many years of growth, the population of Balew Whale Port has only gradually increased by more than 400. It is inconvenient to make such a small population, so the local residents have opened up some fields near the port, gathering vegetables, potatoes and sweet potatoes, and also raised some big white pigs and beef cattle so that they can get sufficient supplies when their own fleet passes by.

Some llamas and sheep brought back from Tierra Tierra and Chile back then are now breeding well on the island, and most of the small amount of yarn produced is consumed locally on the island. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture has also set up a small military horse farm on the island and raised about 200 horses.

The only industry on the island is probably that the township government organizes residents to spontaneously hunt some seals and sea lions to obtain fur and refine lubricating oil. However, the number of these animals hunted every year is strictly limited to ensure that the population does not decrease rapidly and is endangered.

The 300 new immigrants (French and Guarani each account for half) were soon arranged by the township government. Next, they will use the construction materials transported by the fleet to build houses for themselves, and then settle down and live here. Given the extremely important geographical location of Balewhale Port, the East Coast Republic of China has been continuously strengthening the docks, forts and city defense facilities here over the years to give them a certain self-protection ability.

After unloading supplies and population at Barewhale Port, the five ships supplied some fresh water, vegetables and meat, and also placed some patients to recuperate here. Then they set sail again on August 12th and left Barewhale Port. (To be continued, please search for astronomy, novels are better, updated and faster!
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