If a normal intact walnut falls into the water and floats on the water, then when the walnut stabilizes, the position of the walnut's bud eye must be on one side of the walnut. The straight line formed by the eye of the bud and the tip of the walnut is nearly parallel to the water surface. If the walnut shakes in the water, it will generally rotate around this axis.
When the ants drill out the bud eyes and use them as the only entrance and exit of the walnut boat, such a floating state will cause the entrance and exit to be too close to the water. A slight wind and wave will cause the boat to flood, which is harmful to the boat and the crew inside. Said it was fatal.
The ants have no effective means of drainage. Once too much water accumulates and the weight of the ship exceeds its buoyancy, the walnut boat will sink. The stagnant water itself will also pose a threat to ants who don't like water. A drop of water may kill the ants. Once the ants are trapped by the water droplets, it will be difficult to escape from the surface tension of the water film.
During the trial voyage in the calm inlet, this hidden danger of water intrusion was exposed. Fortunately, the inlet was relatively calm and there were a large number of ants nearby, so there was no damage on the test boat.
To avoid water intrusion, keep the entrance and exit away from the water. In ships in the human world, whether they are sailing ships or later steam-powered ships, the passage to the cabin is opened on the deck and rushes into the sky.
The protagonist also wants to learn from this design, but this requires changing the center of gravity of the walnut in the water so that the walnut can "stand upside down" in the water.
The method is quite simple. Place and fix some ballast stones at the tip of the walnut inside the walnut, so that the walnut can maintain an "upside-down" posture in the water with its eyes soaring into the sky. Moreover, ballast stones can also ensure the stability of the walnut ship to a certain extent.
After trial-installing some ballast stones and fixing them inside the ship with ant glue, the ants also followed the protagonist's request and built a small rainproof shelter in the shape of a bamboo hat with wood over the upward entrance of the walnut ship to cover the entrance and exit. In this way, even if there is light rain, there will be no water entering the cabin.
If there is some water ingress, the only way to do this is to rely on the ants to use their mandibles to break the water into small droplets, and then carry them overboard and discard them. This is a very crude and inefficient way of drainage.
New problems were exposed during the re-trial of the renovated walnut ship. The walnut boat changed from a "lying position" to a "standing position" in the water. Although the problem of water intrusion was avoided, the change in the attitude of the ship's center of gravity made the current ship very unstable, and some strong winds would cause it to swing violently.
After all, these walnuts naturally grow into an oblong shape and are relatively stable in the "lying" position. Even if they swing, they roll along the axis of the walnut tips and bud eyes and are not easy to overturn. However, in the "standing" state, the axis is perpendicular to the horizontal plane. Under the action of external forces, the walnut boat is prone to violent swings, which is also a hidden danger to navigation safety.
The protagonist leads the scientific research team to study the solution which is to add a balance beam to the walnut boat.
This design is similar to the single-sided frame design of ancient human canoes. The most primitive canoe is a monolithic canoe, that is, a canoe does not add other structural components. However, using a monolithic canoe for navigation has poor wind and wave resistance and is prone to overturning.
The single-sided frame canoe is a floating material in the same direction added to one side of the canoe and connected to the canoe through a crossbar. The single-sided frame canoe has very good stability and can drive smoothly in wind and waves. The rolling amplitude is very small, and it has good resistance to wind and waves, roll and roll resistance, and can be used for long-distance navigation.
The ancient Polynesians even used these canoes to almost conquer the Pacific Ocean, colonizing various distant islands.
The side frame of the walnut boat is a wooden stick about the thickness of a pencil in the human world, passed through a thinner wooden stick about the diameter of a toothpick, and fixed to the side of the walnut boat with fiber binding and ant glue.
After modification, the current walnut boat has basically overcome the problems of rollover and swaying.
Next, it is time to give the walnut boat real sailing capabilities.
The previous trials in the inlet were not trials in the strict sense, because this rough, crude, and primitive walnut ship did not have the ability to sail independently at all.
The so-called sea trial is when ants on the shore drag long ropes woven from plant fibers and ant silk connected to the walnut boat, and drag the walnut boat slowly on the water in a fiber-drawing manner.
In the future, walnut boats will not be able to move in this way, otherwise the Angel King's army might as well fight all the way along the lake shore to the swamp, and there will be no need for boats.
The protagonist thought of taking the water route in order to avoid potential conflicts with the indigenous ant-hunting tribe.
In order for a ship to move, it must have power and steering force. The protagonist has previously considered many ways of powering human ships, such as sails, oars, rudders, and oars.
However, with the size and strength of ants, tools such as paddles, propellers, and rudders are difficult to drive, or it is difficult to obtain sufficient power and steering force to resist the resistance of wind and water flow.
The only thing that can be used for reference is the sail. Although the protagonist only knows the most primitive kind of sail that can only sail with the wind, it is enough for the time being.
Because, the good news is that according to the investigation of the Flying Knights, the path from the big lake to the swamp is generally with the current and against the wind, while the return from the swamp to the big lake is generally with the direction of the current and the wind, and the current is not fast.
The ideal situation is that the walnut boat can float all the way to the swamp without unfurling the sails and using the current. On the return journey, the sails are opened to overcome the resistance of the countercurrent and return all the way.
But this kind of navigation is not safe enough. Without independent power, it is always a hidden danger, and without steering force, it is even more unfeasible. Whether it is downstream or against the current, whether it is tailwind or headwind, the ship's own steering force is needed to correct the course. Otherwise, it will really become "drifting with the crowd".
The protagonist also experimented by making a large oar as a rudder, which was fixed to the shell of the walnut boat with a rope, and six ants near the entrance were responsible for operating it.
However, during the trial voyage, these six ants found it difficult to control the rudder and quickly change the direction of the ship. If you change the rudder to a larger one, more ants will be needed to operate it, but the relatively safe entrance and exit cannot accommodate more ants. If ants operate the rudder on the shell of the walnut boat, and it is very easy to lose footing and fall into the water, it will basically be a dead end. .
The protagonist had to give up traditional human-style steering tools and power tools such as rudders, and began to solve problems in an ant's way.
He was finally inspired by the flying knights and came up with a solution.
That is to equip the walnut boat with bees or flies, and the bees or flies pull the walnut boat through the rope.
