Allen took a deep breath to clear his head. Work began slowly after the speech. They had divvied up the schedules for the shipwrights, but Allen hadn’t noticed any of them going home. He hoped he would be able to have his team working on Friday and Saturday, but he was unsure at present. Work continued on wire and cabling in the AV room under the captain’s quarters, and mounting cameras, wire, cabling, and fiber optic lines all around the ship. There were sensors everywhere. The sensors would indicate that they were hit by a cannonade from another of the ships on the show. All of the sensors went to a few central hubs that would feed the information to the computers that would tabulate the results and lower sails that were hit by a cannonade volley to reduce the effectiveness of the sails. They were strewn across all the rigging, gun rails, rudder, prow, stern, masts, and everywhere. They all had wire. By the end of the day, it was obvious that they would run out of Ethernet cable. Allen got an intern to run down parts.
Each boat had a Caterpillar Diesel engine for cruising around, and a pair of matched diesel generators to supply power to everything. They were fed by an oversized fuel tank that looked like it would power the ship around the world before refueling. The engine room was awesome.
At class they learned about how the cannons would go bang, and the instant the propane charge would go off it would send some signals using infrared lazars and prizms to identify where the shot would have landed if shot from that trajectory. It even calculated the arc of the shot verses the range, and the wind direction and speed. It didn’t show the person firing it where it would land but the computer would give the data to the video monitors that were mounted by each of the cannons which could superimpose special effects. The special effects would be modified for the program with CGI, but that part wasn’t instantaneous. Each boat would track its own damage, and the damage inflicted on the other boats in the area and refreshed 10 times per second for redundancy. Each area would be observed, and bystander casualties would be tallied, and referees would put the wounded in the infirmary for the duration of the battle. It seemed like they were about to make it as realistic as possible.
Everybody in the program got the chance to shoot a pair of propane cannons at the BYU cannons on the other side of the yard. There was no one there since the Utes had class later in the evening. They could recall the BYU guns firing earlier in the day. This must have been where they were shooting. Allen was anxious to see what it looked like to have one of the cannons shot toward you. Especially at night. That must be terrifying.
They went back to work after class, and all of the shipwrights were there. Allen feared burning up all of their time, so he confronted Mr. Montoya about it.
“They’re going to be part of a legacy.” Montoya proclaimed. “I don’t think any of them are keeping track of their time anymore.”
“I don’t think I can give them all a hundred bucks a week. I’ll go broke by the time we get in the water.” Allen admitted. Montoya just laughed.
“If you graduate, and can’t find work in construction management, I’m sure you can find work as an inspirational speaker.” Mr. Montoya said. “Or as a salesman at the very least. These guys will do anything for you.”
Allen just gave him a look. “I’m just tryin not to fall on my face.”
“Well, if you do, I’ll pick you up and brush you off.”
“We need to tell the builders on the other ships that they don’t have enough Ethernet cable.” Allen said. “We need to keep them up to speed on all the deficiencies.”
“We’ll lose our advantage.” Montoya observed.
“Some of it yeah, but it’s the honorable thing to do.” Allen reasoned.
“I’ll make sure they get the information.” Montoya confessed. “But I’ll hold up on it for a day or two so that they aren’t aware of how far ahead we are.”
Allen nodded. Then after thinking about it he asked. “How far ahead do you think we’ll be?”
“A few days, maybe a week. But everybody else is behind. They’ll probably have to push the television schedule.” Montoya said. “They’re all going to have to work overtime.”
“Edward and the financiers are not going to like that.”
Montoya shrugged.
Allen spoke in to his mic to Sara as he looked over to her area. “Sara, can you get permission for the shipwrights to eat and sleep with us at camp?” Sara nodded her head. Allen gave her a wink.
Allen made sure all the shipwrights had a seat at his table, but only a few took him up on his offer. More food would have to be prepared which meant more would have to be purchased. Sara and the other interns took care of that. The producers agreed to buy the food and lodging for the shipwrights and their families for the next few weeks. For late supper they had halibut, cod, or salmon cooked to order, with veggies and a bread item. They also had waffle cones with any of a dozen types of ice cream. Allen and Montoya surveyed the day’s progress and made notes of where they needed to pay more attention and load it up with Utes. There were plenty of civil, process, structural, and even a chemical engineer to take up the extra work.
Thursday Week 1 of shipyard.
Cindy asked one of the interns to get some sort of practice dummy that the pirates could use to practice their swords on while they weren’t busy with something else. The intern scurried off, but she was unconvinced that she would get what she was explaining about. When nobody came to get a clarification, she mentioned it into her mic to try to get results, but her intern was not as efficient as Sara.
There was a storm moving in as the crew assembled before beginning their day of work. Light breezes were intensifying, and the smell of rain swept through the camp. Allen and Cindy practiced with their swords before work. Cameron came outside after eating his breakfast and watched. Cindy was improving. She was easily as good as Allen’s brothers, and better than nearly all of the rest of the Utes. She and Allen talked about her putting more weight on her blades to build her strength and stamina.
“When I was young, I was swimming at the local pool with flippers on my feet.” Allen started. “They were my dad’s flippers, and they were way too big for my tiny muscles, but I sure could swim fast with them on, so I used them a lot. I raced my oldest brother in the pool and totally kicked his trash.”
“So?” Cameron asked. Allen gave him a scowl.
“So, my brother wanted me to take them off and have a rematch. So I did.” Allen explained as he drank a sip of his espresso. “When I took them off my feet could paddle so quickly that I was still fast. Faster than him anyway. I kicked his trash again. The effect did wear off though.”
“So?” Cameron repeated.
“So, if you practice with heavier weapons, and get good with them?” Allen explained. “Then when you go into a battle with the lighter ones you will move with incredible speed.”
“I will use heavier blades to practice with.” Cindy decided.
“Me too.” Cameron agreed.
Work continued on the ship. More help was needed with the optics and instrumentation. It didn’t seem possible to get enough hands on the lagging projects. Allen asked the shipwrights who he thought was among the more competent Utes at each task, and they were separated into more specific tasks. It was bogged down for a little while but seemed to improve overall performance after a few hours.
The cannons had a network of hoses and cables hidden beneath them that went into little festoon tracks to prevent wear when the cannons would fire and move backward. There were hydraulic pneumatic shock absorbers to make them move more realistically when firing. It was explained that since they were not shooting a projectile, they would not normally blow back like real ones would. They were also much larger than the 3-pound and 6-pound cannons that they had been told they would be using. The cannonball that these would shoot if they were real would be massive. The small ones were 5 inch diameter, and the large were about 7 inches. They looked more Hollywood than functional, but that was because they were Hollywood and not functional. They had armor encased propane and burner oil hoses for the explosion and smoke, and a bundle of wires and cables for ignition and targeting. The cameras built into the ship that viewed the area were placed so that none of the mechanical and electrical equipment would be visible unless the cannons were swiveled to extreme aft angles. Allen decided that after they were the first at sea they would have a class on how to target and shoot. Then they would practice until everybody was deaf.
Class was moved to lunch time to maximize their schedule. Dr. Lyons took little convincing to move his schedule. He was anxious to be part of the reason that this team, his team, would be victorious. They learned about rigging and sails. They learned how to tack and keep moving relatively into the wind. The big old ships were awesome by their own right. There was a reason they ruled the seas, and the Spanish had such an enormous impact on the shaping of the globe. Few people knew of any other type of old ship, but everybody has heard of the Spanish galleon.
There were other crews working on lighting and cameras. A cheer would arise every time a new section of the ship would get lights on line. The efforts were coordinated with the AV crew beneath the Captains quarters. They wanted cameras before lighting, but Mr. Montoya nixed that plan. He reminded them that they were part of a legacy. They fell in line when he explained it that way. He needed people to be able to see. He correctly thought it would be better than being seen.
Work also continued on the weather station and all its components. A couple of people had no fear of heights and were like spider monkeys climbing all over the place. It seemed like the weather and communications equipment went everywhere, but it was nearly all hidden inside of the standard equipment and rigging that you would find on the genuine Spanish galleons. If it couldn’t be hidden it was disguised or out of view of any of the fixed cameras on the ship. Anything that was accidentally included would be removed with AI or CGI.
There were a few places where there was room for expansion. They could add an additional 45 to 55 cameras, and a lot of lights if they were tied in at the right locations. Allen figured they would all be used by the end of the season. If not, then by the beginning of the second season.
The cook had pizzas brought to the shipyard for supper so that the crew didn’t have to break down to get some food. They ate and fought as they ate. They talked about their families, and people that they missed back home. You would be rich if you had a nickel for every time someone said I wish so and so could see this.
Todd noticed that the sword skills were going to fade if they didn’t take action. He discussed having a sweet sixteen competition at least once per day. It was agreed upon, but the contest will have double elimination. Sandoval was excited to get underway. The crowd observations indicated that the swordplay was the biggest draw, so he encouraged the students to steal the show from the other teams. He accidentally leaked that there was no competition with the other schools in swordplay yet. Even the shipwrights cheered when they heard that.
Friday week 1 of shipyard.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Allen woke up before the alarm. He took some Advil and tried to stretch out his sore muscles in the shower. These long days were taking a toll on his body, and he was not doing a lot of hard work during the day. He pondered the thought of giving the crew some down time. The Shipwrights ran out of hours yesterday, and he couldn’t expect them to all stay for the long days every day. “We might need to have a team building exercise.” He mused aloud.
After eating his overstuffed breakfast burrito Allen walked around the shipyard assessing the remaining work and comparing it to his schedule. They had hit all of the weakest points, and were doing a lot of the fine detail work now, but there was still a huge amount that had to be completed. He went up to the catwalk and found an opening that he could look through at the BYU ship. It didn’t look too far behind, but the cannons weren’t mounted yet, and the cannon doors were not in place. None of the weather gear was up either. He began to wonder how long ago the work had started, and how long it normally took to put together a ship like this. “No one knows.” He spoke aloud without even noticing. “They’re prototypes.”
The crew started stringing rigging all over the boat and tying it to the small hidden winches. The rigging could be done manually, but all of it could be done remotely as well. This ship could be set on autopilot if needed, and take care of the amount of sail, trim, speed, angle, rudder, anchors, and everything involved in a genuine Spanish galleon with a minimum crew of 4 people by Allen’s recon. They went off the drawings, and it seemed to take a long time for it all to make sense. It wasn’t until he thought of how to get forward movement on a ship that size that he saw how come they came up with each sail, and why it was separated from the sail above and below it. “Those Spanish really knew what they were doing.” Allen said to himself.
“They still do.” Mr. Montoya replied before Allen realized that he’d spoken out loud. And that’s when it dawned on him that Mr. Montoya was Spanish. He started to laugh at his lack of vision. He did not even put 2 and 2 together until that moment.
“I love this ship.” Allen said as he turned and looked at it with amazement in his eyes.
“I do too.” Mr. Montoya agreed. “I love all my ships though. But I have to admit, this one is special. It’s a cyborg of ships so to speak. A cross between authenticity and technology. I envy you and your friends.” He admitted.
“Why’s that?” Allen asked earnestly.
“I rarely get to enjoy the ships I work on. I don’t even keep track of them unless they’re special like this one. But whenever I hear about a ship sinking, I find out if it’s one of mine.” He sounded like someone who took ownership, and pride in what they worked on. He sounded like his dad.
“My dad would like you.” Allen said as he looked back on the project, and then the schedule. He did not notice the admiration that the shipwright superintendent had for him as he distanced himself from the conversation and immersed himself in his work.
When the practice dummy arrived Cindy, and then Todd scrutinized it. It was completely useless for what they intended to use it for. Allen excused Todd and Cindy to redesign it to be better suited for their needs. They worked on it for several hours, and then gave the design to Allen to get it built. He and Mr. Montoya scrutinized it for several minutes while asking questions, and then sent Sara to get it done. She seemed to be the only one that could work miracles on the Hollywood side. The new practice dummy worked with the same principles as the Bruce Lee resistance training dummies that he would have built.
Anthony prepared a high protein lunch, and the students learned about finding longitude using the sextant, almanac, and an accurate watch or clock. You could see how far you had traversed from your point of origin using the almanac and the sunrise, apogee, or sunset. Apogee was nearly impossible. It was easier to make a calculation and estimate. Allen wanted to practice using this information, but he was committed to the project, and being first. Everybody was burned out from working the crazy long hours, so Allen told one of his dad's stories about the widget machine as they finished class, and lunch.
“So, this guy works at this widget factory. He busily worked at his workstation making widgets every day from sunup to sundown. Well, one day he thinks of a way to make a machine to make widgets, so he builds the machine and starts making widgets faster than ever before.” Allen began. “Well, he’s able to make more widgets than the rest of the employees put together, so they eventually sack everybody but him, and make him the CEO of the company. Well, it doesn’t take long until he wants to golf and stuff so he hires a guy to run the machine while he screws off. Well the guy he hires keeps making fewer and fewer widgets each day. After a few months the guy isn’t making quota, so the CEO has a talk with him. He says, why are you slacking off? You need to get your numbers up or I’ll can your sorry butt and get someone else to run the machine. I used to make a million widgets a day, and you can’t make five hundred thousand. Well, the old boy turned to him and explained that the machine was always breaking down. It needed parts. It needed to be greased and oiled. The chain needed to be tightened, it leaks hydraulic fluid all over the place, and he had to get a cleanup kit to avoid getting an environmental contamination suit filed against them. Well, the big boss man didn’t believe him so he fired him. He hadn’t had any problems with the machine, and it always ran like a charm when it was new so he would get someone else to operate the run-down machine.” Then Allen took a bite of an apple, chewed and swallowed it, while everybody waited for the end of the irrelevant story. “Do you know what the moral of the story is?” he asked, and took another bite while people made their guesses, and he shook his head every time. “You need to take the time to take care of the equipment. The old machine didn’t work like it did when it was new.” He stated when no one was guessing correctly. “You know what the real moral of the story is?” Allen asked as they considered the story and the moral. “You are the machine. While you’re young you can work hard, play hard, and abuse your body, and it will bounce back the next day. But as you age you need to take better care of your body, or you’ll be spending all of your time recovering.” Allen explained. “We’ve been working hard to get this work done, but you all need to remember to take care of the machine.”
He turned and got off the deck of the boat that he was standing on when he addressed the crew. Mr. Montoya turned to Sara and Sandoval and asked, “Where does he get these stories?” Sara shrugged her shoulders, and Sandoval wondered the same thing.
Rigging work continued as they burned through what seemed to be a mile of rope. They also continued to mount the door openers on the cannon doors, and mounted the seals that would keep the rain and sea water outside while they were closed. The different glues and solvents would make your head spin so Allen got them to use the respirators that they should have been using all along. The Safety Data Sheets showed that they were really bad for you so they had to endure a health and safety lecture as well. Many of them welcomed the respite from the work, or maybe they were taking care of the machine.
At 8:00 pm Mr. Montoya shut down the project. He also wanted to make sure that people were taking care of their machine. He and Allen stayed and surveyed the progress and got a plan of attack for a big finish for the week. They both wanted to finish strong. But neither would discourage the workers from coming in late, leaving early, or even not showing up in the morning.
Allen looked at the stars and dreamed about navigating by them. North was easy enough, but he had never been south of the equator so he wondered how hard that would be. He worked on his navigation skills using the stars but found it too difficult, so he used the moon and pretended it was the sun at apogee. He was getting to where he could do it automatically with the tutelage of Dr. Lions and Travis.
Saturday week 1 of shipyard.
Allen woke to his alarm. It had been a while since that happened. He was disoriented when he woke, and he started looking for the doorway so that he could get to the bathroom. He felt like a fool when he came to his senses, but everybody else seemed to be asleep still.
He walked outside in the early morning air and enjoyed the view of the moon hanging in the western sky. It was waning albeit just barely. He liked the look of it when it was in the western sky in the early mornings. The way the light played on the craters it looked like the man in the moon was really a woman's profile of the left side of her face. The kind of view that you might notice on a coin, or a cameo. He tried to focus more clearly on the moon but it was illusive.
He got coffee instead of espresso and sipped it while he ate his breakfast burritos. He did not seem to get tired of them. These had some hot salsa in them which made it so that he had to take his bites over his plate to avoid making a sloppy mess. He barely avoided getting some of it on his pirate gear. He was wearing his blunderbuss decoys today. He felt like he did not get in a full day on Friday, so he wanted to maximize his training.
Today they were concentrating efforts on the galley and the beds. It will be cramped when they get underway, he noticed. He sure was glad they didn’t have to sleep in hammocks like the real sailors had to. He wondered how many real sailors would be on the ship with them. He would like to meet them and have them help with the construction if possible. He wondered if they would be Spanish as well.
They continued to work on the rigging and sails. They seemed weird all unfurled in the building. The air handlers didn’t seem to make any impact on the fabric that they were made of. They also worked on rudder controls. They could be done manually, and it looked like that was the common method of steering the ship, but it had automated power steering that could be used to take control. It had a computer autopilot that could be made to steer the boat automatically. Tied into the GPS this thing could self-navigate the globe. “Neat.” Allen whispered.
The practice dummy arrived just before lunch. Allen winked at Sara when he saw them bring it in through the big doorway. Cindy and Todd gave it a look, and then Todd commissioned 2 more to be built that they could mount in the cargo area when they got underway. The first was a rush job that could not be duplicated though, so the next 2 would have to wait. They would not arrive until they were nearly at sea. “That’s fine.” Cindy said as she looked at Todd and Allen for approval, and they agreed. They did not need it until they were bobbing around on the ocean anyway.
They worked until 3:00 pm before going to class since this one was coordinated with the Cougars. Work ceased and the shipwrights changed into pirate gear as their families arrived. It looked like there was going to be a celebration of some sort, and Allen wanted to skip class to go to it. They loaded into the longboats again and went rowing out on to the ocean and did sextant training while the Cougars shot fake cannons at them from the gimbals. It was scary at first, and loud, but it was real fun. It would have been neat to have air cannons set up under the water to go off and splash them, and rock the boats, but there was not any of that.
After class they showered and got loaded on to the busses with the shipwrights and their families. They all went down to a mall where they had a meet and greet with a bunch of fans. There was a big party there that everybody seemed to enjoy. There were BYU students there as well, and a sort of fan club from each of the schools. The Utes had a bigger crowd, so they considered that a win of sorts. When it got dark, they had scenes of the show projected on one of the large walls of the mall. When it was good and dark outside, they played the 4th installment of the commercial.
Commercial #4. Country wide.
Blunderbuss shooting at target. Allen and Debby of all people.
Shouting orders from crow’s nest to cannon (Someplace else)
Shooting a cannon from a gimbal. (Someplace else)
Obstacle course from a drone to eye level. (At all locations.)
Allen and Todd swordplay backlit and dusty.
Allen defeated and kneeling, panting, backlit. Blood from mouth.
Allen was getting tired of getting his butt handed to him in all of the commercials, but the fans seemed to eat it up. Allen and Todd spent a bunch of time doing photo ops both separately, and together.
Cindy was spinning her blades and fighting shadow fencers for the crowd and some of the BYU students were making fun of her.
“Do you want to dance?” She asked the pair of them, but they bowed out. They still had the nerf swords that were issued them in the beginning.
Another Cougar stepped in that had a wooden sword. It didn’t have any protective jacket on it like the Utes used when practicing so she didn’t bother to put hers on.
“On guard.” She said as she leveled her blades in front of her. The crowd made a circle around the combatants, and Cindy backed off from 2 quick attacks as she waited for a camera man to get inside to where he had an unobstructed view.
After they traded a few quick whacks, she sheathed one of her blades without taking her eyes off her foe. She had a short sword that was just shorter than her longsword that she used in her right hand. She was going to beat this guy with her left hand. The crowd held its breath. Cindy smiled. She recalled what Allen had said about beating them so soundly that they lose the will to fight. This opponent was most likely the alpha. He was about to be beat by a girl fighting left handed. The will to fight would start to drain.
She slashed 3 times from the left side in and he easily blocked the shots. She jabbed high, and then low right up the middle in short succession, but the blows were batted away. Todd and Allen could see that she was testing the waters, but the man’s confidence was beginning to build. Cindy smiled again. “Forty five seconds.” She yelled out to the crowd. “Twenty dollars. Do you want high, or low?”
“Left-handed?” Mr. Montoya shouted back, looking for confirmation.
“Of course.” Cindy laughed as she batted away two of the Cougars quick jabs.
“High.” Montoya answered.
Cindy shot him a scowl, turning her head but not her eyes. Which made him laugh.
“Go!” Todd shouted, and he looked at one of the bystanders that had a stopwatch function on his smart phone. The timer started.
Cindy waved her sword in a sort of modified infinity sign. It wasn’t ten seconds before she used the weaving of her sword as a feint and did an upward slash that raked the man’s left side and stopped in his armpit. She pulled it out as he tried to trap it by clamping his arm down, and poked him twice in the groin, and lightly slashed it across his throat as he bent forward.
“You’re dead.” She whispered to the BYU man. “And you owe me $20.” She said to Mr. Montoya as he proudly pulled the money from his wallet and gave it to her.
The look on the man’s face failed to make her feel heroic, however. She knew she had to beat him. She knew she had to humiliate him. It didn’t feel right when she did it. She was disappointed in herself even though the crowd picked her up and carried her around on their shoulders. This was not the person that she was trying to become. She felt dirty. She didn’t feel triumphant.