The Macaw is in surprisingly good condition for a Daedalus-level assessment.
Structurally sound and tough boat.
She didn't look at all like a crone that had weathered a century, she looked more like a 30 or 40 year old boat that had just lacked care for a long time.
Lorraine lacked expertise in materials science, but by the sound of Keren's words, it appeared that the cause of this result was a special oxidized film on the surface of the hull.
All exposed planks throughout the ship are covered with this special membrane, thinner above draft and thicker below.
This membrane insulates the wood from ammonia, slowing its deterioration and making it ready to go out to sea and oceans.
Of course, that doesn't mean the Macaw doesn't need repairs.
The small iron parts of the boat rusted badly.
Keren's plan was that things like cable buckles, bale masts and the like, the parts of the Buttercup that had ample spares on board were replaced straight away, and the anchors could be evened over two from the Buttercup.
Brig and Brigantine are of the same type, with four anchors each, retaining two sufficient for them to moor securely in calm seas, such as the island of Herbasi, and then in the large marinas of the various countries.
The rivets holding the hull in place were out of the question at the moment, but again, thanks to that membrane, the Macaw's rivets were good for a few more rounds of fighting, and as long as there were no storms or battles on the way, it could have been sailed back to Southampton for another overhaul and replacement.
The successful resolution of the iron and wood problem meant that the boat problem was 80% solved.
The rest is trivial.
Waterproof glue was not a problem, and the cable Buttercup was well stocked.
As for the sails, Keren's plan was to remove the Buttercup's two catch sails and convert them to a bowsprit, which would provide the Macaw with some wind-cutting ability.
The Buttercup's transom was of the three-sail system, retaining only the lowermost spinnaker, and transferring the middle transom to the Macaw to form the downwind side.
The top section's transom sail was diagonally split in two and converted into two mizzen Latin sails to increase the ship's speed.
Such adjustments would drastically reduce the use of cables, and Crane expected that when the modifications were completed, the Macaw could gain a speed of five knots downwind and three and a half knots upwind in the Atlantic, enough to keep up with the Butterfly Blossom, which was short of sails, and form a line of ships that would sail back to Britannia together.
Overjoyed, Lorraine entrusted the task of altering the ship entirely to the trusted master craftsman, and immediately ordered the good news back to Camp Windward.
The first round of sea cave expeditions yielded three thousand pounds!
The memories of the deaths and injuries were put out of the minds of the excited sailors, and the second round of selection began the same night that the winds greeted the land, and this time Lorraine wanted twenty-eight men.
A new expedition will return to the Sea Cave three days later in the Macaw, which has completed its repairs, to take the pirate treasure, whose existence has been made clear, back into their possession!
...
In a flash of three days, the Buttercup's repairs were well organized and already forty percent complete.
The Macaw, its sails becoming disfigured, carried the morale-boosting expedition slowly offshore, using the wind, manipulating the cannons, and frightening the bats to rejoin the end of the waterway.
Warships at anchor.
This time Lorraine brought more men, pushed three artillery carriages, and brought twenty copies of the medicine packs alone, which could be completely set aside for the artillery and used directly as explosive packs.
The long procession, lit with torches, once again made its way to the spot where the giant lizard had been encountered earlier.
The body of the gargoyle was gone, the body of the sailor who had been left behind was lost, and only the light gun and the shells that had been left behind remained intact and piled up, all the same as they had been three days before.
Lorraine knew that Komodo Gargoyles had the habit of scavenging and eating one another, and this change proved that the group of Gargoyles they had encountered were not the only hosts in the sea cave.
They may have their own kind, and perhaps there are predators in the cave that are just as powerful as they are, if not more so.
Lorraine raised her arm, "Rest, load the guns, three groups on sentry duty, don't move away from the brigade."
That big fight seems to be working ...
Animals are much more sensitive than people, and in a near-enclosed ecosystem like a sea cave, the Komodo giant lizard is certainly a dominant player upstream, if not at the top of the food chain.
They launched an attack on the new human arrivals, at the cost of eight adult gargoyles, and hunted down only three, which was enough for this ecosystem to rank the strength of the humans, and more than halfway through, that ranking would be above the gargoyles.
Thinking of this, Lorraine's heart
After a break, the group continued on its way, passing unhurriedly through the narrowest point of the tunnel, after which it opened up more and more.
Noa followed Lorraine's lead, vigilantly looking to survey the increasingly shadowy cave walls.
"Captain, do you feel the cave getting warmer?"
"A little ..." Lorraine tugged at her collar, "Lizards are cold blooded, if they don't have a warm environment, their desire to act will decrease and they won't be as aggressive."
"Really?" Noa's big eyes blinked with curiosity, "Captain, how do you know everything?"
"Basic biological common sense ...," Lorraine shrugged helplessly, "Keren and Acharin know that too."
"I know, humility is a gentleman's virtue!" Noa nodded her little head seriously, "Captain, why does it get hot when no light shines in the cave?"
"Most likely, we're marching towards the volcano ..."
"Volcano!"
The two were chatting when the procession folded and turned in a great arc in its march, and a sudden light dawned before them!
They entered into a flat, wide cave.
Cave has more than ten meters high, egg-shaped, shaped like a theater, the widest place is thirty to forty meters, which grows everywhere in a clump of red or green, Ying Ying light of the peculiar plant bushes, the entire cave reflecting the light strange, such as a dream like fantasy.
These lights were faint and not enough to hold, but the sailors had been traveling in the pitch-black sea cave for a long time, and had long since become accustomed to the darkness of not seeing the head or the tail, except for the orange-red square of their torches.
The light and clarity of the hole that first appeared before my eyes was unconsciously relaxing.
Lorraine looked at this incredulously, "These are Glowing Qin?"
Glowing Tums are strange creatures that emit light on their own when they are sprouting plants, and are fungi, not edible.
It's still the same strange cold knowledge that Avatar brought to Lorraine in her last life, to know what's going on, but not what's going on.
This kind of cherished species was at first glance in Herbasia, naturally making Lorraine astonished㤞.
Noa beside him was so mesmerized by the beauty in front of her that she couldn't help but lean up, and before she could take two steps, she was pulled by Hina, who had come to the front group at some point.
"Hina?"
"Beautiful things often harbor danger." Hina pointed to a from of glowing Qin not far away, "At least those giant lizards wouldn't dare come here."
It was only through her that Lorraine and Noa saw patches of glowing Qin more or less accumulating skeletons.
Mostly animals, with the occasional human head.
They were hidden in the brightest part of the cavern, hidden and hard to detect, and if it wasn't for Haina's sharp eyes, even Lorraine would have narrowly missed them.
In fact, he did miss it.
More accurately, not a single person in the entire expedition, except for Hina, even noticed the danger implied in it, all of them being mesmerized by the beauty that was hard to find in the human world before them!
There were at least ten sailors making their way to the Glowing Tum, the closest having almost put their hands into the light bush.
"Everyone stay away! Masks and no contact!" Lorraine loudly signaled to the team.
His voice wasn't fast, but it wasn't fast enough in relation to the agile sailor who was moving quickly and had no defense in mind.
There were already two sailors with their hands in the light bush, and when they heard Lorraine's voice, they couldn't help but stare.
"Ah!"
The screams rose suddenly!
Sailors with their hands in the light bushes stumbled backwards with their arms raised, a colorful ribbon curled around their hands, and took only a few steps back before falling convulsively to the ground.
The ribbons came loose from their arms and swam and slid to the next sailor, and only two duhs were heard as Hina's red velvet fleur-de-lis nailed one, and Noa's silver tarot sliced the other in two.
"It's a coral snake!" Hina drew a new flyer quickly, "They're spooked!"
"I'm intimidated too!" Lorraine clanked out her twin swords and spread them out across her arms, shielding the sailors behind her as she slowly backed away.
Colorful ribbons swam out of every clump of light, numbering in the hundreds, each only 50 or 60 centimeters long, slender, and beautifully poised.
They closed in on the expedition from all sides, pressing the circle smaller and smaller, most of them standing tall, supporting their triangular heads and hissing and spitting bright red snake letters.
It's a sign of an impending attack!
Lorraine, Noa, Haina finished the zigzag standing in formation, each protecting the left and right of their companions, but even they were glared at by hundreds of pairs of serpent's eyes in their hearts, and there was no certainty that they would be able to kill their way out.
Worse still, even if they killed their way out of this cave, what were they going to do when they came back?
"Yacharin! Fire into the open, now!"
Yacharin's face reddened to the point of dripping blood, "What if ... Captain, what if we can't scare them off!"
"If we can't scare them off ... the Drake Chamber of Commerce can change its name to the Artis Chamber of Commerce. Fire!"