Singer Sailor Merchant Mage

Chapter 193: Ballast

"Time and tide wait for no man. A pompous and self-satisfied proverb, and was true for a billion years; but in our day of electric wires and water ballast, we turn it around: Man waits not for time nor tide. Less judgement than wit is more sail ballast.”

Mark Twain

“If you had filled the upper deck, it might have risen straight up without rolling.” Arawn helpfully pointed out after the fact as we stood on the ceiling in the upturned hull. “The whole point of having ballast is keeping the ship upright in stormy weather. You removed it.” He chuckled.

“Thank you for pointing that out,” I replied a little sardonically. “But we have reached the surface.” I pointed out the success of raising the ship. “Something I would have achieved with or without your help and not something most of the rest of the crew could have done on their own.”

“Yes, but how are you going to sail this home upside down?” He was not finished bursting my balloon.

“Obviously, I’m not finished. Let’s go see the crew about our next steps.” I avoided answering while furiously thinking through exactly how I would achieve that. My grandfather and I swam out of the upturned hull.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of the criticism I received. When I reached the surface, I had to suffer some more.

. . .

“A little advance warning would have been nice. You nearly hit the ship when it came up!” Captain Kashif called down when we surfaced between the two ships, one right way up, the other upside down.

“I wasn’t sure it would work,” I muttered as we clambered onto the deck a little bedraggled.

“Well, it worked. You’ve raised a sunken wreck. Did you intend for it to be the wrong way up?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Everybody’s a critic,” I mumbled under my breath before continuing. “I have a solution, but we will have to tow it home either way as it has no sails or rigging left. Would it make much difference to tow it home upside down?”

“Do you need to ask?” he returned. “If ships were made to sail upside down, you would see a lot more doing it. The mast would likely catch at some point and snap clear off, which is saying nothing for the increased drag. It would be like pulling an anchor along.

“Fine, like I said, I have a solution.” I’d been brainstorming possible plans since Arawn had pointed it out. I thought I had a suitable fix.

“Care to run it by an experienced Captain before you decide to experiment again on the turtled hull?”

“Ice.” I declared.

“Ice?” He questioned.

“I will grow an iceberg attached to one side of the top deck under the water. Eventually, the ice will float the hull up sideways in the water. Then if I enter the hull from the half out of the water and start to fill the ballast with water, it should right itself, and I can melt the ice.”

“Fair enough as a plan goes if you were on your own. But you are not.” He pointed out. “You do not need to do everything yourself. You have a crew use them. We will get the ropes and winches out, attach them to the deck once it is halfway there, and help winch it the rest of the way.” He decided to adapt my plan and ensure everyone had a part in it. “In fact, it would probably help if some of the crew swam over and shifted all the goods to one side of the hull. That would help to pull down one side while your ice pushed up the other.” He called out a few orders to put my plan into motion.

It was time to get wet again, but it would be a little colder this time.

. . .

The Neriad joined me, watching with interest as I headed to one side of the upside-down underwater deck. Though there was little they could do to help me, they kept me company. The amulet made it easy for me to start freezing one side of the deck, gradually building a slowly spreading iceberg frozen to the deck.

I was unsure of the exact calculations required to make Archimede's principle work, something about buoyant force being equal to the weight of the fluid that the body displaces. But I knew that if I pushed sufficient mana into the solution, eventually, it would work. Mana over mind, much like brawn over brain. I knew the saying went the other way around, but I wanted a quick solution to correct my mistake rather than have everybody waiting around for me to think it through.

The main problem was keeping warm enough next to the growing iceberg. The swarming sailors had finished rearranging the formerly sunken ship's hold long before my iceberg provided enough buoyant force to lift the boat up onto its side. The Neriad kept me company throughout, watching with wide eyes as the increasingly large iceberg formed.

Ready for the final step, they helped the sailors attach the ropes along the hull and set them up for winching. With everything under tension, I returned to the hold to add water ballast while Arawn helped by slicing off the iceberg as the deck rose up and finally left the water. Reaching a tipping point, the hull settled once more upright on the sea’s surface. I could imagine our galley rocking back to level and the ropes falling slack.

I emerged from the hold, under the tattered remnants of the ship’s sails, to a huge cheer from the crew. “Lord Silversea, Lord of the sea, Lord Silversea.” They cried. A little grandiose, but I was proud of raising the wreck, and the crew would get a cut of the spoils on our return.

“Don’t let it get to your head. Lady Acacia could have achieved something similar, even Aleera, given time, and they might not have turned it upside down in the process.” Arawn was always there to keep my head from growing too large.

“I know.” I had already thought of a few ways in which I could have improved my floatation. “Maybe next time.” Treasure found political borders defended, new allies found, and a new addition to our slowly growing fleet. It was time to return home. “Let’s go home,” I announced to another cheer from the crew, all ready to return.

. . .

It was not quite as straightforward as that, though. The wreck was tied off to our stern, and makeshift sails were strung up to replace the tattered remnants of its own. We sailed straight home along the trade route we always took. I was too tired to try and find another wreck. But it was not a quick flight skimming across the waves but a slow and laboured slog as we pulled another ship behind us. We even had to put some of the sailors on the oars when the wind turned against us.

I rested in the ship's cabin the rest of the way home. In contrast, the crew toiled and rowed us ever northward. When we returned, I would have to face the two envoys if they were still camping out at our home, and I needed some time to reflect and plan our next move. Maybe they had given up and returned themselves, but while I hoped for the best, I planned for the worst and fully expected them to be waiting for our arrival and the island’s port.

. . .