The Baltic War(199)

While he'd been at it, he'd taken advantage of the "pod" configuration to incorporate a centerboard feature into the design. Forward and aft of the magazines and the huge, thundering diesel, he'd added a pair of centerboards between the pods, each of them basically a big wooden plank, fifteen feet from front edge to rear edge, which could be lowered vertically to add ten more feet to the ship's draft. That additional stability, "twin screw" maneuverability, and their much better power-to-weight ratio, made Simpson's ironclads far more stable and seaworthy than the majority of the original river ironclads . . . and several of the later Civil War monitors had even been sailed across the Atlantic, which was generally rougher than typical North Sea conditions. He'd known all of that, but it was still a great relief to discover that the USE's ironclads were having no trouble handling the requirements of their current voyage.



Of course, he thought dryly, looking back to where Ajax and Achilles steamed gamely along behind the larger, deeper-draft ironclads, it's being a more pleasant experience for some than for others.



The timberclads hadn't been designed for coastal waters—not really. They were typical, flat-bottomed, shoal-draft riverboats, designed to operate in shallow waters. Their bulky steam-powered plants had imposed design constraints of their own, as well. He'd had to locate the boilers as low in the limited hull volume as possible in order to protect them from hostile fire if they got close enough to something with guns heavy enough to penetrate their thick timbers. One of the greatest dangers to the original ironclads' crews had been the threat of fatal scalding when their boilers were breached, and he'd done everything he could to minimize that particular risk. Then he'd had to squeeze in their magazines around the boilers, for the same protective considerations. And after that, he'd had to find a place to put their coal bunkers, although he'd actually managed to use those to strengthen the side protection of the powerplant and ammunition. But there'd been neither space, nor pumps, nor surplus power available to worry about features like flood tanks, or variable draft, and their paddle wheels were simply a less efficient means of propulsion.



Taken altogether, those considerations made the timberclads slower, less nimble, and less stable than their larger, more sophisticated big sisters.



Which means they're rolling their guts out, even in this chop, Simpson thought.



It wasn't really all that bad, he supposed. No doubt it looked worse to him than it actually was, since he bore the responsibility for having designed them in the first place, not just the responsibility for getting them safely to Luebeck. Still, with wind and wave coming in from almost broad on the port beam this way, they really were rolling more heavily than he—or their crews, no doubt—liked.



Well, he told himself, they'll only have to put up with it for another ten hours or so. Then they'll get to take the seas on their port quarters, instead, and won't that be better?





Louis Franchot stood on the deck of his fishing boat beside his worthless, lazy brother-in-law and watched in amazement as the long line of impossible ships sailed past them.



He'd heard rumors about the preposterous warships the Americans were supposed to be building, but he hadn't really believed them. Everybody was always talking about something new and impossible the Americans were supposed to be inventing, or building, or conjuring out of thin air, after all.



Still, when the Crown officially offered fat rewards to anyone who actually saw and reported them, it had been clear someone took them seriously. Now Franchot was forced to do the same thing.



They went past him, moving with total disregard for wind or weather, and they had to be making at least ten knots, probably more. In fact, he was positive it was more than that; he just didn't know how much more, because he'd never seen anything move that fast. Nor had he ever seen any ship move without sails or oars or any other visible means of propulsion. He simply had no experience to apply to estimating how fast these ships were moving.



He'd thought at first that the two in the back must be on fire, judging from all the smoke they were emitting. Obviously, though, they weren't. The smoke was coming from what were clearly purpose-built chimneys, and even if it hadn't been, the ships were continuing blithely on their way, which they would scarcely have been doing if they'd been on fire!



He estimated their course carefully, then nodded to himself. Everyone knew this so-called League of Ostend had the Swedish emperor locked up in Luebeck. From everything Franchot had heard, that was rather like a herd of belligerent sheep getting together to besiege a large, particularly hungry wolf, but that hadn't been any of his concern. It still wasn't, but it was obvious even to a simple fisherman like him, that the warships keeping watch on Luebeck were about to get a truly nasty surprise.