Chapter 37 Emergency
No matter how dissatisfied the crew members on the Haicang ship were, they still had to continue doing what they had to do. After all, from the moment they arrived in this time and space, everyone had no way out. Today's training course for the rookie crew is to sail two round trips between the east and west ends of the bay. The whole journey is only about twenty nautical miles, but they have to constantly raise and lower the sails to adjust the direction according to the captain's requirements, and they have to report out at any time. Heading, sailing speed, wind speed, this kind of training content is enough to make them exhausted in half a day.
There are not a few people who dream of being captains because of "The Age of Discovery" and "Pirates of the Caribbean", and then choose to join the shipping department because of this. However, such naive ideas have long been abandoned by them after several days of cruel training. The back of the head. These future captains now have a clear understanding that becoming a man who conquers the sea is not as easy as it seems in the game movies.
Although they often have unpleasant encounters with Yankees at sea, privately many people actually go to Yankees to ask for advice on sailing skills. After all, the worst of the North American gang can sail a sailboat for more than half the time. This earth, compared to these rookies, is like a god. In particular, Tom Wang, who has rich sailing experience, even gave a special lecture on the forum. There are many fans waiting for his post every night and then angrily grabbing the sofa. Even Xie Chun, who has the least dealings with the North American gang, actually goes to the forum to read Tom Wang's teaching posts, but he always adheres to the principle of "reading the posts without replying".
At five o'clock in the afternoon, after sailing past Yulin Point for the last time, Sun Changmi finally ordered the end of today's training and turned the ship back to Victory Port.
After commanding at the top of his voice for a long time, Sun Changmi felt that his throat was a little hoarse. Fortunately, he would be replaced by Yue Zhiyun as the captain tomorrow, so he had a day's buffer period to rest.
Of course, there is definitely no vacation to speak of at the moment. The members of the executive committee are also working on the front line, and no one below is shameless enough to ask for leave. Even if Sun Changmi didn't have to go to sea, he still had to keep an eye on the wood drying room. As a pre-processing step for future shipbuilding wood, this work must not be sloppy at all.
In any case, it is much easier to manage the wood drying room than to take the rookies out to practice. Sun Changmi estimates that he even has enough free time to refine the sailing design plan of the Shipping Department on his laptop - currently he He Yuezhiyun has not yet reached an agreement on the final design plan due to some detailed issues.
While Sun Changmi was thinking about the future, the walkie-talkie hanging on his waist suddenly rang: "Training ship, training ship, reply received!"
"The training ship has been received! I am the captain Sun Changmi!"
"This is the Yulinjiao post. Ships have been observed five nautical miles away from the southeast."
"It should just be the fishermen." This thought flashed through Sun Changmi's mind. This kind of thing had happened several times in the past few days, and it was later confirmed that it was fishermen from far away who came to the nearby fishery by boat. Sun Changmi just thought about it, but did not say it directly. Instead, he continued to ask: "Can the size and number of ships be determined?"
If it was just a small boat that appeared alone, it was probably still a fisherman. Sun Changmi did not want to let his exhausted crew sail the boat for another round of the open sea just because of such uncertain news.
“There are only two seen so far, but the size of the boats seems to be larger than the small fishing boats that appeared a few days ago. The masts and sails on the boats can be seen.”
Sun Changyun frowned. With masts and sails, the possibility of it being a nearby fishing boat was very slim. He hesitated and asked: "Where are our other two ships now?"
"Everyone has returned to Hong Kong." The voice on the other side of the intercom was also very helpless. If the two clippers were still patrolling the bay, it would obviously be much more convenient for them to go over and take a look at the situation.
If the Haicang ship continues to move forward, it will have to pass through the narrowest pass outside the port. Although the water there is four hundred meters wide, the novices on the ship cannot turn the ship around in such a narrow water area. They can only Sail directly into the Victory Harbor and then slowly turn around and drive out. It will take a while to come and go. Sun Changmi hesitated, gave the order to stop the boat, and then said to the intercom: "Let's stop the boat now, and you can observe it for half an hour. If the two boats still don't leave, we will turn around and go have a look. ”
Ten minutes later, the intercom rang again: "The two ships were heading east and had disappeared from sight."
Everyone on the Haicang boat breathed a sigh of relief. They didn't want to miss the hot dinner just because of a few fishermen who happened to appear in the open sea. It is said that Chef Fan from the cooking class has returned from Base No. 2 today, and he is expected to eat Fan's special seafood rice tonight that has been missing for a week. The foodies are holding back their motivation to destroy a few more bowls.
Sun Changmi ordered the anchor to be raised and the sails to be returned to the port. The crew members, who were hungry after an afternoon of training, also became energetic and shouted loudly and pulled the cables together. It seemed that they could smell the aroma of the food in the canteen across a large area of the sea.
The Haicang ship docked slowly at the temporary dock, and a dozen meters away were two catamaran sailboats docked one behind the other. Eighty percent of the various materials and equipment that I carried when I crossed over have now been unloaded on land. The remaining small amount of materials and equipment are either temporarily unavailable or are inconvenient to store on land. All of them are temporarily installed in the "New "World". Most of the other ships that had been basically vacated no longer docked at the dock, but directly docked at the shore.
Considering that some ships may still be dispatched, the Ministry of Shipping only pushed a few flat-bottomed barges to the coast and beached them, and then used these barges as barges to dock other fishing boats, tugboats and landing craft outside. The temporary pier usually only docks the "New World", which will not move again for the time being, and three sailboats that go out to sea every day. The arrival of the ship at the dock does not mean that today's training is over. According to the provisions of the "Basic Crew Manual" compiled by the Ministry of Shipping, the crew must wash the deck with water and tidy up the rigging, sails and various tools on the ship. , and then gather on the deck to count the number of people, and then the captain will give the order to disband.
But today everything seemed to be against them. The crew had just finished their work and returned to the dock when Sun Changmi's intercom rang again: "Training ship, training ship, this is Yulin Point. Please return to sail immediately after receiving it." , there is a fleet appearing on the southern sea, heading for the Port of Victory! Repeat, there is a fleet appearing on the southern sea, heading for the Port of Victory!”
Sun Changmi's expression changed, he picked up the intercom and said: "The training ship has docked at the port. I will arrange for the ship to go to sea as soon as possible. Please confirm the situation at Yulinjiao!"
After Sun Changmi finished speaking, he patted Xie Chun, who was already stunned next to him: "Hurry to the base and call out all the Americans!"
The crew members who heard Sun Changmi's shout stopped in shock. Although they still didn't know what happened, the usually calm Sun Changmi suddenly changed his appearance. It was obvious that some special situation had arisen.
"Just now, Yulinjiao Post reported that a fleet is heading for Victory Port. Please don't go back to the base yet." Sun Changmi quickly regained his composure and began to command according to the emergency plan formulated in advance by the Ministry of Shipping and the Ministry of Military and Police. .
The main content of this emergency plan is to "clear responsibilities and each perform their duties." When an external threat occurs, the Military Police Department and the Maritime Department will each defend the assigned military tasks, so that the defense process will not be rushed due to unclear division of labor.
To put it simply, when encountering enemies at sea, the responsibility of the Maritime Department is to drive the few iron-shelled fishing boats in the port out to sea, and the Military and Police Department also has to send people on board to be responsible for fire strikes on the ships. The defense principle formulated by the Military and Police Department at the beginning was to "defend the enemy outside the territory". Enemies that can be dealt with at sea will never be allowed to land. Of course, using an iron-shell fishing boat to go to sea will inevitably consume some precious oil, but from a safety perspective, such consumption is actually very worthwhile. As for the bastion defenses built outside Base No. 1, they are only the last retreat in case the enemy cannot be driven off the sea.
At present, the Maritime Transport Department only has about 20 people left in Victory Port and Base No. 1. Today, a total of 18 people participated in the Haicang ship training, two people stayed on land to look after the wood drying room, and four others Originally stationed on the "New World", he was responsible for daily equipment maintenance.
There are only a few more people from the Military and Police Department staying at Base 1 than there are from the Maritime Department. Currently, more than half of the personnel at Base 1 are women, the elderly and children, followed by the military, police, shipping and a small number of personnel. Logistics department personnel, in addition to six or seven fishermen workers led by foreman Yu Dashan in the charcoal kiln and wood drying room.
When the friends from the North American Gang ran all the way to the dock, Yulinjiao Post had sent further observation reports: there were six sailboats in total, two large and four small. The displacement of the two large ones was estimated to be similar to that of the captured Haicang ship. . The ship did not fly any flags, and its current course is still Port Victory. The speed is about four knots and it is still about three nautical miles away from the Yulinjiao outpost.
"We will go to sea immediately, Sun. You and your people will get on the ship immediately, send weapons to them, and keep in contact with the ship at all times!" Wang Tom made a decision quickly after hearing the situation. At present, Yan Chujie, Gu Wei and others from the Military and Police Department have gone to Base No. 2. The Executive Committee has handed over full military command of the Victory Port and Base No. 1 areas to the six-member North American Gang. In case of emergency, All personnel are transferred under their direct command.
Wang Tom said that these were also arrangements in the emergency plan, and they had done several drills beforehand, so everyone was not particularly panicked. Sun Changmi nodded and was about to leave when Tom Wang pulled him back: "As soon as you get on the ship, contact the executive committee and ask them to prepare to send people back..."
"Is this necessary?" Sun Changmi asked in astonishment.
"Just in case. It takes about an hour to get back by boat from Base 2, so we need to be prepared in advance."
"Okay!" Sun Changmi also felt that what Wang Tom said was reasonable, so he agreed and planned to leave.
"Wait!"
"What else?"
Tom Wang pondered for a moment before speaking: "Let them try to monitor the people near Base No. 2 and on the construction site. If the pirates are really here, then there might have been spies who have sneaked into our territory."
(End of chapter)