Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 779: Pinnacle of all Sail Shipbuilding (1/2)

Vijay got a very good news today, he was informed that the design drawing of the new-generation merchant ship had been completed. Vijay sent Agni to the school and immediately set off for Mangalore.

On his way to Mangalore, travelling in the royal carriage after a very long time, Vijay immediately noticed a huge difference—the traffic was considerably heavier.

Due to more people being promoted to the high class and the middle class getting richer, people have started to travel a lot more. The high-class people have taken up the habit of purchasing their own carriages, while the middle class has started the habit of using fair carriages when travelling from one place to another.

There was considerable traffic in major cities and towns wherever Vijay passed, and he even saw traffic police controlling the traffic according to the algorithm. But all this had nothing to do with Vijay since, being an emperor, he had the privilege of using the exclusive lane on the road, which is reserved for vehicles travelling in an emergency, be it medical, disaster, or police-related. Normally, even politicians are not allowed to use the lane since they are not any more special than the normal citizens of the Bharatiya Empire.

However, the only exceptions are the Emperor, the Prime Minister, and the Chief Minister—not because they are royals and much more special, but because if they travel in normal traffic, it will cause way more congestion due to the number of admirers they have who will rush in to meet their idols. So, it was decided that it was better to allow individuals with high popularity, like the Emperor, Prime Minister, and Chief Minister, to use the emergency lane instead of the normal lanes,

Saving everyone's time and reducing the burden on public employees is more important than upholding some code of equality, which has no other benefits than increasing the reputation of the empire.

By 2:00 PM, Vijay was in front of the Boswell Design Bureau, located in Mangaluru.

Entering the design bureau, he immediately acted surprised when he saw Ghana Prabhu Berunda, the chief designer of the Berunda Design Bureau, as well as the owner of Berunda Shipyard, and his distant cousin Ananth raj Shetty, who was the assistant to Ghana Prabhu Berunda, standing with Danior Boswell and Vishesh Niladri, the chief and assistant designers of Boswell Design Bureau.

The reason he had to act was because he already knew from the intelligence he usually received from the Bharatiya Internal Pragya and Royal Intelligence Bureau that, in order to find additional help since he had become too overwhelmed, Danior Boswell had personally invited the Berunda Design Bureau to jointly research and design the merchant ship. This was especially because Berunda Shipyard had actually made the first part of gold with an extremely pragmatic and customer-friendly 450-tonne Samudra Bandhu Class Merchant Ship, which sold over 300 ships in the first few months alone. And given that the requirements he gave this time were for a full merchant ship focused on speed and cargo capacity, the aim was somewhat similar.

On a different note, Vijay also knew that his uncle Ravi Shetty was putting a lot of pressure on Ananthraj Shetty to join the Matsya Design Bureau, the exclusive ship and naval design bureau of the Chola Shipyard, in which his uncle owns the majority stake. He also knew that Vishesh Niladri was constantly getting offers from both his uncle's Chola Shipyard as well as the Kalyan family's Ashoka Shipyard, as they had offered him the position of chief designer in a new design firm called Bavisha Design Firm.

From some of the tentative information he had, he knew that both Ananth Raj Shetty and Vishesh Niladri were very tempted by the offers, but Vijay couldn't be too sure if they would accept it, as both of them were loyal people and not the kind to backstab their masters. But Vijay could never bring up this matter since he wasn't supposed to know it in the first place.

Danior Boswell, looking at His Majesty's surprised expression, immediately explained, "Your Majesty, I tried to design the ship according to your specifications using the interesting technologies that had been researched by the Academy of Sciences, and I have also conducted a lot of practical tests on the technologies. But in the end, I felt like I couldn't do everything alone, so I invited His Excellency Ghana Prabhu Berunda and his research firm to join the design project."

Vijay had a look of realization and nodded. "I'm glad you can understand your limit," Vijay smiled. He knew that the design work could have been completed much quicker if the designers from the Southern United Naval Design Bureau were involved as well, but he also knew that this would never happen since the chief designer of the Southern United Naval Design Bureau, Puneet Shetty, was a direct disciple of Vishesh Niladri, and Balakrishna Poojari, the second-in-command in the Southern United Naval Design Bureau, was a direct disciple of Ghana Prabhu. With such a relationship that was like a boyfriend meeting his ex-girlfriend, it was no surprise that Danior Boswell did not want to invite the upstarts in the industry. In fact, if he did so, instead of being happy, Vijay would really be surprised.

"Anyway, I don't care about how many are involved in the design," Vijay rubbed his hands in excitement. "Come on, let's go see the model!"

Danior Boswell nodded and quickly gestured, "Right this way, please, Your Majesty!"

Following Danior Boswell, Vijay came into a large room that was extremely messy. He could see papers scattered all over the ground, some crumpled while others were scratched and torn apart. He could even see the vague shape of a ship on all the papers. But just when he was about to question why the room was so messy, his eyes caught the image of a model placed in the centre of the room.

"Deva!" Vijay was immediately mesmerized. Hurriedly getting close to it and looking at it from every angle, he couldn't help but praise, "This is the most beautiful ship I have ever seen in my life, bar none." Vijay was not exaggerating either—he couldn't find even the modern cargo ships driven by diesel power so beautiful. The dynamics of square sails mixed in with triangular sails attached to all four masts were simply breathtaking.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

The ship looked like the very ship that was used to describe the Golden Age of Navigation in his past life. Or it looked like the very ship the Chinese used to describe as flying on clouds rather than water. It was wide, giving it a sleek feeling like that of a razor-edged sword, and it was narrow, making it more streamlined and extremely refined. One look at it, and you would know this was a ship built for speed, but the size of the thing told another matter altogether. It was massive—even as a model. From the front to the rear, Vijay could tell that it was at least six feet, and in height, it wouldn't be less than three feet.

"Tell me about it," he eagerly asked.

Danior Boswell, Ganaprabu Berunda, Vishesh Niladri, and the others immediately woke up after hearing the question. They were already laughing from ear to ear as they couldn't help but feel immense pride. What thrilled them the most was that the emperor, the most supreme being in the Bharatiya Nation, liked the ship they had painstakingly designed over the last four months. Many times, all of them had doubted whether their design would even be used in the end since what they were designing was a behemoth the world had never seen before. But looking at His Majesty's undisguised appreciation, all of them felt content. Even if their design was not put into use, looking at the reaction of His Majesty alone was very fulfilling. They felt like they wouldn't lose much and wouldn't complain, not to mention that the technologies they had researched and invented in the design process had already benefited them greatly, and that was already gain enough.

Extremely flattered, Danior Boswell did a namaskar and started to explain.

"Your Majesty, this is a four-mast all-sail ship, which can be categorized as a clipper design for transporting cargo and, with little modification, passengers. But it is recommended to be used as a cargo transportation ship, Your Majesty, since in order to maximize the amount of cargo it can carry, we had to skip implementing the compartmentalization design, which would make the ship 200 tonnes heavier and reduce the cargo capacity by 500 tonnes. In the end, we all felt that the drawback of not having compartmentalization was worth it in order to meet the 3,000-tonne cargo capacity standards you have put forward, as we figured you primarily wanted to use this ship for cargo transportation."

Vijay nodded in understanding, and he didn't mind whether the cargo ship had compartmentalization or not either. But thinking about the future, he reminded them, "It's a good choice, and all the specifications have been balanced to meet the specialized requirements—I can understand. But in the future, if the ship is very successful, it can be converted into a platform so that modular modifications can be made in order to convert the ship into a passenger ship, a dedicated freight carrier, or a cargo carrier in a month or two."

"But there is no hurry to start this design process since everything depends on the practical performance of the ship," Vijay stroked his chin. "By the way, what's the name of it?"

Danior Boswell constantly nodded—he had a similar plan as well. He felt like the ship had huge potential, and he wanted to fully dig out its potential. But as His Majesty said, he didn't have to hurry; he could polish out all the small errors in the design after the practical tests of the ship commenced.

"Following the naming traditions of the previous ships, we have named it after one of the major cities of the Empire, Majesty. And for this behemoth, we have named it the Kathmandu-class clipper. It is jointly designed by the Boswell Design Bureau and the Berunda Design Bureau."

"Physically, it is meant to be operated in the Indian Ocean as well as the Pacific Ocean. It has never been tested in extremely cold waters, so we are not too sure how it would fare, but we are confident that it wouldn't be too bad. With the upgrades we have made, its survivability shouldn't be a big problem."

Vijay smiled. "That's good." He liked the name very much, "What are its dimensions?" he asked curiously, as he couldn't tell what the scale of the model was.

Danior Boswell had everything memorized in his mind. "The overall length is 110 metres, Your Majesty, while the length on deck is 98 metres. The beam is 17.5 metres, the depth of the hold is 10 metres, and the draught when fully loaded is nine metres."

Vijay's eyes lit up. This was truly a massive ship. "What of its tonnage and capacity?"

"Your Majesty, according to the design, the ship should be anywhere between 4,300 tonnes to 4,500 tonnes, depending on the changes that will occur during construction, which will increase the margin of error. But the gross tonnage wouldn't be more than 4,500 tonnes. The net tonnage should be 3,500 tonnes, while the cargo capacity is 3,000 tonnes. It needs a crew of 50 to 60 people to operate, and if we are only talking about transporting people, then it can easily transport nearly 1000 at a time."

"Very impressive," Vijay praised without holding back, but he looked back at Danior with a hint of scrutiny. "Such a large ship should require a very high level of engineering, well-thought-out construction, and the best of the best materials. But it should also be ensured that not all the materials used are exotic since this is meant to be a ship capable of mass production and not a one-off glory piece. So, how is the construction done?"

To be continued...

P.S. I will attach the image of the ship in the comments, check it out...

P.S. I wrote this whole chap (1+2) yesterday, I have been lazy today, just wanted u humans to know.