At present, the Dinghai Navy has built a ship responsible for communications, and is currently undergoing intense sea trials, and once the experiment is completed, it will be put into communication to help the Dinghai Navy and communicate with various localities.

This kind of vessel, which is specially used for communications, is a small boat with a gross tonnage of only 900 materials.

This small, of course, refers to the small at sea, when tens of thousands of materials, or even tens of thousands of large ships, continue to appear under the premise that 900 materials cannot be called large.

On the sea, even if it is an offshore voyage, too small a ship will not do, for example, these ships that pass through the Haizhou and Dinghai Navy, in the nearest time, are only one or twenty miles, but once the wind and waves are a little stronger, they cannot be passed, let alone at sea.

At present, there are only 3 ships of this kind, which can only be produced in the laboratory, and cannot enter the shipyard, because of its high technical content, it is expected that by the end of the year, the entire number will increase to 12 ships, which can basically meet the needs of the entire Dinghai Navy for communications.

This kind of ship is not the highest speed clipper boat in the sail era, Zhao Xin also once thought that with the clipper boat, it is not only the highest speed, but also a ship that can go to the ocean and race long distances.

But after a little research, Zhao Xin found that in addition to the appearance, other sub-projects did not have a ship.

The technology of clippers, even in the twenty-first century, is leading in non-powered sailing ships, and this kind of boat, just a look, will not achieve its effect at all, and it is prone to danger.

Rather than risk using this kind of very unreliable ship, it is better to study it yourself, based on the current state of the art of the ship.

After thinking about it seriously, a boat reminded Zhao Xin.

Hybrid sailing, to be honest, in the age of sailing, hybrid sailing has been outdated, especially in the era of Spanish galleons, there is no room for hybrid sailing.

However, before the big sailing ships, at the beginning of the Age of Discovery, the hybrid sailing boat was the dominant one in the Mediterranean.

With the Age of Discovery, the lucrative profits of maritime trade made some people rich, but at the same time, it also caused a series of problems, and pirates were one of them.

In some of the West, pirates are free-spirited and adventurous, but pirates are cruel and the most unrewarding people.

They don't do anything about production, they just equip themselves and plunder the seas.

In the open sea, if you want to capture another ship with a boat, a certain amount of information gathering is one aspect, but more important is speed.

The speed of the pirates is much higher than that of ordinary merchant ships, and as long as they are caught up by pirates in the open, no land around, then most of the ships cannot escape.

Among the many pirate ships, the most famous, and the most widely used, is the hybrid sailing ship.

Born in Italy, this kind of sail and oar are perfectly combined, the streamlined body, relatively narrow, in the sailing, the resistance is less, and at the same time, the huge oars that extend from the hull can slide quickly at critical moments, increasing the speed of the boat.

This ship, which was good for nothing but speed, burst into brilliance in the hands of pirates, and countless famous pirates owned one such ship and used a large number of sailors.

These sailors, when pursuing, can act as oarsmen, and after catching up, they can climb the local boats, and acting as stormtroopers can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

Communication, maritime communication, without the premise of radio, can not be achieved at that time, so the faster the speed, the higher the efficiency, the less likely to cause problems.

For example, if there is a clipper ship that can reach the Dinghai Navy in three or four days, they will not react half a month later, and even if they cannot provide sufficient support in the initial stage, as long as a reasonable order is issued, they will not be afraid.

The hybrid sailboat had such a capability and a simple mechanism, unlike clippers, as a boat that was born earlier than the Spanish sailing boat, it had a simple structure and could be built as soon as the pattern was drawn.

However, under the leadership of Zhao Xin, the Dinghai Navy not only has basic ship production capacity, but also has some research capabilities, such as basic mechanics, pool experiments, and some small experimental equipment.

With these things, the hybrid sailboat will not be what it was historically.

At the beginning of the tank experiment, there were some changes, but later, several research institutes suggested that using oars such as hybrid sailboats was not only more dangerous, but also took up too many personnel, which was a disadvantage.

Eventually, after at least four rounds of modifications, this kind of hybrid sailing ship based on the popular hybrid sailing ship in the Mediterranean according to historical pictures is actually completely different from the historical one.

The biggest improvement is in the shape, there is no large number of oars, and the same narrow and long hull, but because there are no oars, it is quite small.

Since the invention of the boat, the oar is the most important tool of the boat, with the oar, you can sail against the wind, or against the current under the premise, this is the advantage of the oar.

The oars are operated by hand and have to be extended, which can be very difficult even on rivers, in bad weather, or for long periods of time, let alone at sea.

The sea is merciless, there is no wind and three feet of waves, and in such a choppy place, the appearance of oars is not an advantage, but a disadvantage.

In the Age of Discovery, the reason why hybrid sailing boats were popular in large numbers was because the Mediterranean, which is actually located in the inland seas of Africa and Europe, did not have a lot of wind and waves, and was suitable for mixed sailing boats.

At that time, pirates were the most rampant, in fact, in the Mediterranean, once they left the Mediterranean Sea and entered the North Sea, there were many fewer of them.

The reason is that the hybrid sailboat is not very suitable for the rough seas of the North Sea.

The Pacific Ocean, because it is big enough, is also relatively calm, compared with the Atlantic, the wind and waves are relatively small, but this is smaller, not nothing, the offshore is better, once you go deep into the deep sea, the wind and waves will be bigger.

In addition to the relationship between the sea conditions, the operation of the oar for power is not high, even on the calm water, can not be fully utilized, let alone in the wind and waves, Dinghai for this new type of ship, equipped with propellers.

In later generations, the reason why ships chose propellers is that the propellers located in the rear part and are half deep, or fully underwater, bring huge power to most boats.

From the oar to the propeller, history, has gone through a long time, from the emergence of the ship, to the Age of Discovery, until the middle of the 18th century, there are special scientists through research found that the propeller compared with other oars, have this incredible efficiency, the same force, the propeller is much more efficient than the oar.

It is this leap that has changed the original form of the whole ship, from a paddle boat to a non-oarless ship, and the application of force is also higher, from a famous ship, to a steamboat, and then to a steamer, step by step development.

Perhaps, for modern scientists, the application of a ship type, or a propeller, will take a long time.

Historically, the designers who discovered the benefits of the propeller, at the beginning, also suffered a failure, I don't know the relationship between the speed, maybe the relationship between the material and the processing angle, the propeller was not installed on the ship for the first time, this project failed, but the paddle steamer began to develop.

Later, with the improvement of technology, the level of materials and science and technology progressed together, and after the paddle steamer, it was the propeller ship.

For Zhao Xin, these are common sense, as long as the ships in later generations are understood, all of them are propeller boats, and even some animations, pictures, movies, etc., the position and shape of the propeller are particularly obvious.

When those researchers proposed to reduce the use of propellers as much as possible under the action of waves and provide power by other methods, Zhao Xin naturally proposed propellers and led the processing of the first propellers.

The propeller, he is not directly machined, he has a certain curvature, so that he can convert more power.

It was not until the middle and late 19th century that this processing difficulty was gradually solved, and it was also in the late 19th century, under the premise that paddle steamers and various steamboats were constantly popular, the scale of ships began to grow larger and larger.

From hundreds of tons, to thousands of tons, to 10,000 tons, at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Entente and the Allies were at war, the two major groups already had steel beasts with a total tonnage of nearly 20,000 tons.

The tonnage of the ship, to such a large increase, the progress of power is a huge reason, but the huge, can support the entire power, the propeller converted to speed, is an important factor.

After Zhao Xin vetoed the oars of the hybrid sailboat, the first choice was not the unique vehicle and ship of the Northern Song Dynasty, but this propeller.

In fact, the vehicle ship is unique to China, and it is a kind of ship that is converted by a transmission device to propel the ship forward quickly.

In fact, it is a kind of paddle steamer, with the help of the paddle wheel, to push the ship forward quickly, this kind of boat, in fact, is also very good, but Zhao Xin has a propeller boat, so it is natural to give up this.

At present, the Dinghai Navy may not be able to process it, completely silent, or even the most efficient propeller, but according to later generations, the description and picture of the propeller can be drawn, as long as the form is enough, the propeller can play a role.

A large number of curved surface processing, for later generations, that is the five-axis machine tool to do, some submarines or military ships, their noise is higher, the reason is that the propeller is unreasonable, when pushing the water, the friction is too large, the sound is too high.

What Zhao Xin wants is not invisible, what he wants is to maximize performance, as long as there is a large conversion rate, even if the sound is a little louder, it doesn't matter.

Dinghai does not have a lathe, let alone surface processing, even if it is a plane, it is not good.

This is the biggest disadvantage of the industrial age, but in this era, there are different changes.

Because there are no lathes, it is not very practical to do flat machining, everything is done by hand.

Similar to the previous Dinghai coin, a few master craftsmen can be processed after a period of time, and the same is true for propellers.

On the material, as long as you use harder, sharper tools, you can process, one person can't do it, two people, two people can't do more, it is these professional craftsmen who have been trained for more than ten years, they can carve it with their hands.

This efficiency is not high, but for a large ship, how big a propeller is, in the entire shipbuilding project, the proportion is not high.

This is actually the fundamental reason why this ship can only be produced in the laboratory, and cannot be industrialized, the speed is too slow, and the craftsmen who are divided into 10 groups can only complete a propeller in two months, which is 10 in 2 months, and if it is really used on a ship, this point is not enough to even plug the teeth.

Zhao Xin also did not plan to popularize propellers, and when there was no steam engine in the power system, propeller ships were not the mainstream.

Manpower is limited, even if animal power is added, it is relatively speaking, and the propeller is not very efficient when it is vulgar, which is also the fundamental reason why the paddle steamer defeated the propeller in the beginning.

However, when the focus is on speed, the propeller has a great advantage over the paddle steamer.

After deciding to lower the propeller, he referred to the shape of the hybrid sailing ship and built a narrow hull to reduce drag.

The position of the propeller is set up by Zhao Xin is the tail diving, but in the middle, how much power device needs to be set up, what kind of transformation is carried out, whether it is to use manpower or animal power, this point needs to be calculated slowly.

After rounds of experiments, and research, in the end, on the choice of manpower and animal power, animal power was rejected.

Compared to the seasickness of livestock, which does not understand anything, or even cannot be relieved, people are better, can be slowed down by training, and can also take medicine.

Although there is still a big difference between people and animals in terms of strength, it is nothing more than a matter of the number of personnel.

The 900-material ship, on the sea ship, belongs to the entry-level level, and does not need to load goods, or in other words, the goods that need to be loaded are less, in this case, in order to increase the speed, and increase the speed of long-distance running, it is not impossible to get two or three groups of people.

Because the boat is small and the resistance is very small, the use of personnel is also reduced to the lowest, and the lower speed is about 18 people, and the maximum is 3 groups and 54 people.

On the whole setup, there are two whole groups, that is, 108 people, and at special moments, it can be increased to 144 people, such people, divided into two or three shifts, enough to cope with the high-speed operation of the whole ship.

In the end, after a series of problems were solved, systems and rules were specially formulated for these ships, and finally, the first one was launched 10 days ago, and a series of experiments were carried out, once the experiment went well, at most half a month, it could be added to the active service, and these ships were also named Flying Fish class by Zhao Xin.