Alone in the dark - 100-ton Solo Yacht
- Thread starter lucasdigital
- Start date
Mark,
I keep coming back to this yacht design of yours and I think it something to do with the fact that I re-read Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around The World" this autumn.
Slocum took three years to circumnavigate the globe, spending weeks at various ports and months in Australia. He was no neophyte when it came to writing. He'd been a stringer for West Coast papers while commanding a general cargo ship in the Pacific and had written a book about his adventures building and sailing a "canoe" home from Brazil with his family aboard after a ship delivery fell through. He kept himself in enough funds during the voyage by a number of means. He took passengers for day trips whenever he touched land, was routinely feted by various officials, gave lectures aided by a magic lantern, engaged in a little trade, he outran pirates off Morocco and faced down others in Patagonia with the help of a rifle and carpet tacks, and generally had a grand time of it. He was gracious enough to accept gifts of money, supplies, and other help from the various people he met. Sometimes those gifts were quite substantial, the RN admiral in charge of Gibraltar directed the navy yard there to refit Slocum's sloop.
He faced an awesome solitude too, no radios in the 1890s, and returned a changed man as he admits and his family recounted. One passage between South America and Australia had Slocum at sea and alone for 2,000 miles.
While the Vinn Kundeai mystery you present is delightful, I also think your yacht is made to order for a 57th Century Slocum, some old salty spacer who finds himself beached, gets his hands on a ship somehow, and then departs on one last grand adventure. Imagine some fellow setting out from the Rim and slowly working his way to the Marches over a decade or so. He sells his story wherever he can, writes installments for whomever will publish them, gives lectures to whatever audiences he can find, engages in a little trading as Slocum did with tallow and other goods, and accepts gifts and other charity all with an eye towards making that next series of jumps.
I don't know how to fit this 57th Century Slocum into an amber seed or adventure, but he would make a different sort of encounter.
There was a "solo spacer' NPC who popped up in a few of my campaigns. Retired from the IISS as a medical doctor(1), "Doc" Wrencher had one of those ubiquitous detached duty Suleimans fitted out as a dispensary, examination room, and surgery. He flitted around the rimward regions of the Marches with nothing more than a few 'bots for company. IIRC, he had one 'bot to help with shipboard tasks and another to act as a nurse. Anyway, he'd pop into some backwater system or some backwater region of a system, spend a couple of weeks/months "doctoring", and then jump away. Sometimes he had a sophont or two with him and sometimes he "berthed" a case and transported them to better facilities, but mostly he was alone and preferred being alone.
As interesting a NPC as Doc Wrencher was, your design has suggested an even better one to me.
Thanks again.
Regards,
Bill
1 - Which is impossible given CT chargen.
I keep coming back to this yacht design of yours and I think it something to do with the fact that I re-read Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around The World" this autumn.
Slocum took three years to circumnavigate the globe, spending weeks at various ports and months in Australia. He was no neophyte when it came to writing. He'd been a stringer for West Coast papers while commanding a general cargo ship in the Pacific and had written a book about his adventures building and sailing a "canoe" home from Brazil with his family aboard after a ship delivery fell through. He kept himself in enough funds during the voyage by a number of means. He took passengers for day trips whenever he touched land, was routinely feted by various officials, gave lectures aided by a magic lantern, engaged in a little trade, he outran pirates off Morocco and faced down others in Patagonia with the help of a rifle and carpet tacks, and generally had a grand time of it. He was gracious enough to accept gifts of money, supplies, and other help from the various people he met. Sometimes those gifts were quite substantial, the RN admiral in charge of Gibraltar directed the navy yard there to refit Slocum's sloop.
He faced an awesome solitude too, no radios in the 1890s, and returned a changed man as he admits and his family recounted. One passage between South America and Australia had Slocum at sea and alone for 2,000 miles.
While the Vinn Kundeai mystery you present is delightful, I also think your yacht is made to order for a 57th Century Slocum, some old salty spacer who finds himself beached, gets his hands on a ship somehow, and then departs on one last grand adventure. Imagine some fellow setting out from the Rim and slowly working his way to the Marches over a decade or so. He sells his story wherever he can, writes installments for whomever will publish them, gives lectures to whatever audiences he can find, engages in a little trading as Slocum did with tallow and other goods, and accepts gifts and other charity all with an eye towards making that next series of jumps.
I don't know how to fit this 57th Century Slocum into an amber seed or adventure, but he would make a different sort of encounter.
There was a "solo spacer' NPC who popped up in a few of my campaigns. Retired from the IISS as a medical doctor(1), "Doc" Wrencher had one of those ubiquitous detached duty Suleimans fitted out as a dispensary, examination room, and surgery. He flitted around the rimward regions of the Marches with nothing more than a few 'bots for company. IIRC, he had one 'bot to help with shipboard tasks and another to act as a nurse. Anyway, he'd pop into some backwater system or some backwater region of a system, spend a couple of weeks/months "doctoring", and then jump away. Sometimes he had a sophont or two with him and sometimes he "berthed" a case and transported them to better facilities, but mostly he was alone and preferred being alone.
As interesting a NPC as Doc Wrencher was, your design has suggested an even better one to me.
Thanks again.
Regards,
Bill
1 - Which is impossible given CT chargen.
Ah yes, that was the one.I think you're thinking of the 'Orient Express' aerospaceplane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_X-30
The China Clipper was older, not as fast or snazzy as an X-30; an elegant aeroplane for a more civilized age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Clipper
Ah yes, that was the one.
yeah -- I saw this tidbit: Propellants: Air/Slush LH2 [1]
so air + liq hy -- it's gonna be an AZHRAE in TNE terms
a space-bomber close to it -- using Liq Hyd/LOX is the Tu-2000, developed in 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-2000
the HOTOL (by the UK )is being replaced by HOTOL 2 and the Skylon vehicle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_Skylon
Also NASA X-43
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_X-43
There was a "solo spacer' NPC who popped up in a few of my campaigns. Retired from the IISS as a medical doctor(1), [...]
1 - Which is impossible given CT chargen.
(Half joking) do you suppose the IISS just uses Navy doctors?
/Half
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
What? And see the already abysmal survival rates plummet even further!
Scouts - We don't need no Doctors - Ow (RIP)
:smirk:
