I ask Ilfwen, "Then, the ship's crew will sail the new boat back to Porvar?"
Ilfwen lectures, "Not directly. The cannon have not yet been installed. The cannon are being manufactured by a foundry in yet another country. When the boat is ready to sail, the crew will sail it to the harbor where the foundry is located and the cannon will be installed there."
"Then, we'll do a sort of pre-shakedown cruise to the foundry harbor. The foundry people will then install the cannon. Then we'll do a final shakedown cruise to Porvar."
Ilfwen sighs and says, "Yes. Then, when we get to Porvar, you have to somehow convince them that what you plan will actually work."
"Not a problem. You see, I'm a magician. I have a magic wand and I can demonstrate my magic."
Ilfwen just shakes his head in denial at having to deal with an obvious nut case.
We walk for a while and then we get to the edge of a sizable town. We're on a hill, above a bay and we can see a little of the ocean water, in the distance.
We walk through the town and people notice us. I guess that a tall man, for the area might be maybe five feet eight inches. I'm six feet six inches and Mark is an inch taller. We're giants, as far as the town folk are concerned.
We walk down to a shipyard. The guy at the gate recognizes Ilfwen, who just waves at him. We walk over to a dry dock, where sits the nearly completed boat that we'll use. There are men working on the boat.
The boat is a catamaran! I hadn't thought about the configuration of the boat, I just figured it would be a slim mono-hull. The more that I think about it, the more sense a catamaran makes. A catamaran has a very wide stance in the water and it should provide a more stable gun platform than a mono-hull, particularly a slim mono-hull. A catamaran is also much faster than a mono-hull. A very fast, stable boat should be a good base for a ship killer boat.
Ilfwen notices my inspection of the boat. He lectures, "It's built from a very special wood. Actually, it's not wood, but some sort of material that the Keegor furnished the shipyard. The stuff is light, very strong and also very slippery. The material also has some bumps on the surface, bumps that the Keegor claim will make the boat faster. The deck is the opposite. The deck material isn't at all slippery and should make the footing safer."
"What about seaweed, barnacles, that sort of thing?"
Ilfwen chuckles, "The Keegor stuff is poisonous to almost all ocean life, There is some sort of sea creature in the southern oceans that likes to eat holes in wood. One voyage through the south seas and a wooden ship is finished. The catamaran is poisonous to the southern ocean sea creature as well."