After finishing the second modification of his spirit vessel, Zheng Yang dropped the anchor and walked from the bow to the stern of his new ship, meticulously inspecting it.
He then read the boat's information.
Basic Information:
Vessel: Level One Spirit Vessel
Status: Complete
Sealed Spirit: Scaly Demon Bug (larva)
Spirit Power Core: Moonlight Shell
Spirit Power Reserve: 3/100
Base Speed: 10 knots
Attack Boost: 5%
Defense Boost: 5%
Power Boost: 5%
…
Equipment Data:
Main Drive: Ball Sail, Single Mast, Triangular Sail
Auxiliary Drive: Manual Oars
Figurehead: Scaly Demon Bug
Figurehead Skill: None
Remark: skipped
…
It was only eight at night by the time he finished his second modification, and he had yet to have dinner, so it was the perfect time to try his hand at cooking dinner on the boat.
He only had a torchlight to serve as illumination, so he had to conserve the battery. It was good that the moonlight was so bright that the night sky was almost bright as day. He took out the firewood stove and the other utensils on the deck and started to cook dinner at the stern—dried fish and cabbage stew with corn.
That night, he had a good night's rest sleeping on the ground and didn't enter that weird ghost ship dream again. The gentle rocking of the boat also made him feel like he was sleeping in a cradle.
When he got up in the morning, he discovered that he, who was supposed to be sleeping near the front door last night, had ended up near the bathroom at the backdoor instead.
"The last storm was pretty strong," Zheng Yang thought. "And the weather has been nice for the past few days. Gentle winds and bright sunlight, perfect for going out to sea."
He stood at the deck and looked out over the sea for a bit before deciding to set sail. He knew how to predict the weather, having lived on an island all his life. The air pressure could change at a moment's notice, but so long as he didn't encounter any unexpected air pockets, his predictions were close to 90 percent accurate.
It was quite a bummer that the wind was against him, forcing him to change course every now and then so as to move forward at a 45-degree angle away from the wind. But then again, in terms of speed, moving against the wind meant that a boat with only a triangular sail would be able to move faster than one that had a ball sail.
It was lucky that he'd read about the principles of sailing a sailboat with a triangular sail—the Bernoulli's principle.
To put it simply, when the wind would blow from the front, this would cause the ship to move against the wind, so one should turn the sailboat at a 45-degree angle from the wind. Just like with the oblique wings of aircraft, when the wind blows over the sail, it will split into two currents moving horizontally and vertically. With the lengthwise section of a sailboat (along the stabilizer running from the bow to the stern) in the sea being far greater than its cross-section (e.g., Zheng Yang's spirit vessel was 2.5 meters wide at its widest part), the sailboat would face far more resistance moving sideways than vertically. However, with the wind divided into forces at two different vectors due to the change in angle, the sailboat wouldn't be pushed back diagonally and would instead sail forward smoothly.
Because a sailboat's speed is directly affected by the air pressure against the sail, and because the surface area of the sail determines how much wind the sail can catch, even if the wind were moving diagonally at a speed less than three meters per second, a sailboat with a large triangular sail would actually be able to move faster than the wind. However, if a boat were to move with the wind, it would be impossible for the sailboat to move faster than the wind even with the ball sail lowered.
Zheng Yang didn't have GPS on his boat. Instead, he depended entirely on an old nautical chart and a compass for navigation.
The old chart was something Old Hans had given him, and the older man had taught him how to use it. Even though it was common for modern-day fishing boats to have GPS, there was always the possibility of GPS and other navigation systems failing. As such, fishermen would often keep a nautical chart and a compass just in case.
Zheng Yang wasn't expecting himself to be able to accurately navigate to the English Harbor on his first voyage. So he set sail for a smaller target and would consider it a success if he were able to arrive at the shore.
Not long after leaving the wreckage behind, he saw a small fishing boat in the distance. He peered at the other boat with the binoculars hanging from his neck, but he didn't pay any mind to it. Instead, he set course for his target and let his boat glide along with the wind before heading back inside to freshen himself and make breakfast.
The voyage was exceptionally quiet. There was no rumbling of diesel engines and motors—only the sound of the winds hitting the sail as the boat simply glided smoothly along the sea.
He liked this feeling very much, and any thoughts he'd had about installing engines or motors receded from his mind. After finishing his breakfast, he climbed up to the roof of the cabin and lay down to enjoy the view. The barren sight of the open sea was something he'd gotten fed up with, but now, as he looked at the sea on his own boat, he felt differently.
The massive sail cast a great shadow, and at the moment, he was lying in the shade of the sail, listening to the sound of the sloshing waves at the bow of his boat. He could sense the fish swimming past within a six-meter radius range of the spirit vessel's perception, truly having the time of his life.
The sailboat's wheel and the mechanisms for controlling the sails were all on the deck near the bow. He didn't bother turning the wheel himself when directional adjustments were needed, simply spending one point of spirit power to have the boat do so on its own. After all, the spirit power reserve was at its full capacity of a hundred points at the moment.
"Things would be just so beautiful if it weren't for the curse and those eldrich entities," he thought.
"When I get to the port cities, I'll have to learn more about the occult and find some ways to counter the eldritch entities. It would be even better if I could get my hands on some sacred relics and find some ways to upgrade the spirit vessel—just any info on involving the boat."
With that thought, he got up, went back to the cabin, opened the decking, and took out a box full of books. He flipped through the books, looking for anything that had to do with the occult.
He had actually read all of the books in that box over and over. The books covered astronomy, geography, history, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine, and there were several books for each topic. However, these books were just basic reading materials that his father had gone out of his way to purchase at the port cities so Zheng Yang could expand his knowledge.
Other than that, there was also his father's collection of travelogues and novels, all of which he'd read before as well.
As such, it didn't take long for him to give up the idea of finding anything that had to do with the occult in those books. The only book that contained any information about the spirit vessel—the old travelogue—had outlived its usefulness. In order to prevent people from seeing the book and making the connection that his boat was a spirit vessel, he burned the book on the stove when he was making breakfast.
He continued sailing the sailboat eastward in a zigzag pattern. Because the wind wasn't that strong, he was unable to pick up much speed. He speculated that the boat was moving at a speed of about four knots because he was moving the ship in a zigzag pattern at the moment, while the boat's speed while sailing in a straight line would actually be less than three knots.
His voyage was exceptionally quiet, and it continued like that for eight hours. The winds changed direction at about two in the afternoon, becoming noticeably stronger as well. If it hadn't been for the "being one with the ship" phenomenon, which enabled him to detect such changes right away, he would have quickly veered off-course before long.
The winds were blowing against the side of his boat. He checked with the nautical chart and compass and made directional adjustments accordingly, raising the ball sail and moving with the wind instead of against it. His boat immediately moved twice as fast as before, shooting out like an arrow from a bow.
His boat basically maintained a speed of about eight knots for another two hours. By then, he was already halfway to his destination. He checked his digital watch and found the time to be around four in the afternoon.
He then observed the skies for a while, predicting that the winds at night would be even stronger. However, the shoreline would be within sight by then.
His maiden voyage had been without incident thus far due to fine weather. He felt he had mastered all that he'd learned from Old Hans regarding the use of the nautical chart and compass, having put all that theoretical knowledge to practical use. He was also able to steer his boat with immaculate precision due to the cheat sheet he had, which detailed how the boat worked.
He checked the seas before him with his pair of binoculars after sailing for another half hour. To his surprise, he spotted a two-story yacht about two nautical miles away. The yacht was about 10 meters long, and there were actually people moving about on the deck.
"Looks like I'm near where I should be, then. Are those people planning to fish in the middle of the night? Otherwise, why would they be out here so late?"
On the yacht before him, several young people were waiting to be rescued. They all looked very frantic, and one of them was incessantly making calls for help on a satellite phone. A few of the others, though, had managed to spot Zheng Yang, and they were enthusiastically waving at him, signaling for help while yelling in excitement.
Zheng Yang was rather excited himself. "They sure look happy to see me, waving at me and all," he thought. "It's an exhilarating thing to find another vessel out in the open sea after all."
Zheng Yang slightly adjusted the direction of his boat and headed over to the yacht, moving like a huge fish approaching without making a sound.
Getting near the yacht and decreasing the speed of his boat enough to park beside the yacht without the use of an engine or motor was something that required a lot of skill. A person had to have a firm understanding of inertia in order to make precise predictions about when to let down the sails to get right up to the desired target. He put down the ball sail about 10 minutes later to decrease his speed, and about 15 minutes later, his boat was within a hundred meters away from the yacht. He then lowered the triangular sail and drifted along by inertia.
He was finally able to hear the shouts from that yacht, and he was surprised to find that the people onboard were actually asking for help.
The two-story yacht was actually quite small. It could only hold 10 people on board, with the second story having only a sunshade.
His predictions were not all that accurate, and the sailboat drifted four meters away from the side of the yacht, stopping only when it was 10 meters away, causing the ones on the yacht to yell frantically.
It was indeed very awkward.
He ran to the stern and waved in response. He finally spoke when the other side quieted down. "What's your situation?"
There were seven people on the yacht—four guys and three girls—all of whom looked to be in their early twenties. All of them were dressed very casually. The guys were dressed in boardshorts and either short-sleeved dress shirts or T-shirts, while the girls were dressed in long skirts and hotpants, with one of them wearing a bikini.
He was getting very excited seeing four very young girls before him.
Nevermind models. What could be better than taking several of these beauties out to sea on your own sailboat?
What a life indeed…
The young people on the yacht looked at one another in confusion, and one of them, who was a black guy, called out in a rather exaggerated manner, "Hey, mate, please don't tell me that you're the one operating this sailboat!"
It was quite a surprise to them all. They all thought that Zheng Yang was working under a captain's orders when they saw him getting busy at the bow, but seeing how he ran to the stern on his own to respond to them, they could immediately tell that there was no one else in the cabin. It was only then that they realized, to their astonishment, that he seemed to be the only person on that boat.
They were puzzled at how this apparent runt of a kid, who looked to be several years younger than they were, was sailing all by himself out in the open sea on a sailboat.
"Oh my god, are you kidding me?" they all thought.
All the others peered into the boat's cabin to get a better look, finding what they saw to be utterly unbelievable.
Zheng Yang rested his hand on one of the pillars holding the shade up and replied, "Quit looking around. There's no one else here but me."
"My gosh, you're amazing!"
The girl dressed in hotpants was petite, and she was also the youngest in the group, looking to be 16 or 17 years old, with very chiseled features. She cradled her head in utter shock as her blue eyes looked Zheng Yang from top to bottom.
The tall, lithe, pretty girl dressed in a vibrant, long skirt then clapped to get everyone's attention. "Guys, I think we should now all think about how to get home instead of gawking around here. My god, we're stranded now, all right? Can you think of a way to get out of here, Entes?"