The royal flagship Imperial Pride was no longer the glorious sea-castle of the Grand Thalassocrat.
In thirty-six hours of ruthless, round-the-clock town conversion, three hundred shipwrights, joiners, and boiler-smiths had stripped the four-decked warship down to its bare, muscular bones.
The carved gold-trimmed nymphs and sea dragons had been chiseled off the transom with broadaxes.
The four tiers of bronze cannons had been hoisted out by overhead frame cranes and rolled to Borin’s foundries to be melted into rail-car axles.
In place of the royal staterooms on the main deck stood three compact steam-driven electric generators, bolted directly through the white-oak deck beams with two-inch zinc-coated tie-rods.
Across the quarterdeck, Master Caleb Thorne-Wood had framed two huge forty-foot timber shear-legs made of four-ply layered pitch pine, rigged with six-part steel wire rope tackles and steam hoisting engines.
Giles Croft stood on the centerline of the new salvage deck, his chalk-box in hand, checking the load-bearing bracing with Toby Karr.
“White oak is an exceptional load-bearing material,” Giles said. He tapped the four-inch deck planks with his boot heel.
