[COR - intro] Billy Dodger's first assignment

[Pimbo]

Another fine Corrington national is looking to join the Empire's exploration and expansion effort - William "Daring Billy" Dodger.

The son of a respected architect, Billy has recently graduated from the Belson Royal Engineering University, where he was known for his practical jokes and some rather unsuccessful experiments in the development of a safer type of gunpowder.

Billy is now pursuing his lifetime dream: a career in the powerfull Corrington Navy. To this end, he has used his professor's connections to get an audience with a renown Navy admiral.

"Uhm.. yes... well.. your references are certainly uhm... impressive... uhm.. Well, I suppose I could always use a decent engineer. We're quite short of hands, with everyone in the country losing their bloody minds and heading east to the New World and all... Uhm.. Well... Let me think.... Ah! I think I've got the perfect assigment for you! Follow me to the shipyard."

"One of our captains found this ship abandoned and adrift near Tiberia. It's a little banged up and all, but still quite.. uhm.. seaworthy. The shipyard can't keep up with the demand for new ships, so we're refitting this one. You know.. uhm.. the weirdest thing happened, one of the crew that found her almost had his uhm.. foot bitten of by a crocodile that had crawled on board."

"What was the ship called, admiral?"

"Oh.. uhm.. the Saint Vitus Dance... Our intelligence suggests she was under command of an inexperienced captain by the name of.. uhm.. Croquet.. but never returned from a trade run"

"I see"

"Bloody Oleon scum with their weird names... But we're renaming her Torrent. I want you to oversee the overhauling. See if you can make this uhm.. primitive piece of crap.. into something worthy of the Corrington navy."

"Aye sir!"

And so Billy sets of, drawing up plans and overseeing the construction process. And two weeks of hard work later, the Torrent is ready for inspection by the admiral. Billy, however, has a little joke in mind to play on the admiral....

"Well sir, there she is! I made some changes to the rigging as well. The first sea trials were a bit dissapointing though...."

"What the?!?!"

"Stand still so I can cut off your head! You good for nothing bungler!"

"Whaaaa! It's a joke, admiral, it's just a joke!"

One beating and two hours reconfiguring the rigging later....

"She's a fine ship Billy, she'll be a fine addition to the merchant fleet. I could use someone like you on the crew!"

"Thanks lieutenant.. But I'm not sure the admiral is keen on having me in the Navy though..."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In real life of course, the Torrent and St Vitus Dance are two different builds, but similar enough to conceivably be transformed with some barrels of paint and some minor woodworking.

Also, instead of being just a piece of scenery, the Torrent is a sturdy ship with play features, taking me back into my comfort zone.

Both the anchor and the tackle are functionial, and can be controlled by either turning the capstan or the little knob at the back of the ship. Switching between the two functions is done by turning the barrel in front of the foremast. Implementing these features in a small prefab hull was a real challenge! Oh, and Lego, could you make those technic 2x8 plates in brown please?

She is armed with four 12-pounders, and a large cargo hold, fitting a class 3 trade ship.

The sails are waterproof and tearproof paper, so they will probably last me a while.

The stern with the dinghy removed. The black gear can be pulled out 2 studs length and then drives the capstan mechanism.

The quarter galleries turned out quite nice. I may have to redesign the stairs to the poop deck though.

More pics in the Brickshelf gallery!

(Edit: typo)

Edited February 8, 2016 by Pimbo

[Mr Greeble]

Fantastic boats. Love it when people incorporate play features.

[Pimbo]

I forgot to mention, the technology for the capstan was stolen from the Oleon shipyards by our Corrington spies (Corries stealing superior technology from Oleon? The world has gone mad!)

[Tomsche]

Great looking ships, and very clean pictures, I love it

[Mike S]

I had to go look at your previous topics as I had thought you had joined either Oleon or the Sea Rats... but since I was mistaken... Welcome to Corrington! I really like your building style and presentation. As far as registering as an intro, just post your character Billy in Corrington thread and you will get the 25 DBs plus 10 DBs for posting this as a free build.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Mike S

[Tezclatipoca]

That's great ships ! The 2 builds are really excellent !

And I like you added play features !

Great job !

[TitusV]

A nice pair of intro-builds! Welcome to BoBS!

[Captain Genaro]

Those are some nice builds, and once again you've made some excellent sails to do along with the ships.

As good as your building might be, I can't imagine Daring Billy will have a successful career if he keeps running afoul of admirals like that.

[blackdeathgr]

Welcome to BoBS! Awesome builds to introduce your sigfig! And the ships are nice too. Especially the BLUE one!!!

[Bregir]

I like the two interiors - they are great backdrops to the story and have many great details. I particularly like the globestand.

The story is really nice too, and I will be looking forward to hearing more!

The dockside is great - I like the gate, and all the details on the quay - but obviously the highlight is the vessel(s). The idea of refitting a damaged ship and painting it in proper Corrington colours is great. But to actually build another "copy" is really something extra! I think she looks nice in both liveries, and I really like the brick-built guns. The cabin looks great and the hull looks great from all angles. As to the rigging, that is really nice too - my only comment is, that the mainmast looks like its a bit too far forward.

All in all, great work!

[Maxim I]

Nice story about how you refitted the Oleon ship!!!

It brings a small problem for me as I indexed the Oleon ship as a Class 3 T (small brig). So this one I have to classify as 3 T as well. However you still can licence it as a 2 T for example and wait untill you earned enough to upgrade your licence :)

[Puvel]

Those are some nice builds! The offices and the dock look good, the ships are beautiful, well done!

Excellent story too actually

[Captain Dee]

Excellent intro and welcome to Corrington! Both interiors and both ships are really nice. I like the globestand and all the red in the first interior and the sharply contrasting colors in the second, plus the neat tidy appearance overall. The ships are both beautiful, and the more I see of this red/black/white the more I like it. The dock area is nice too, and the prank is funny if not slightly dangerous! Good work.

[engineermax]

Another fine example of us Corrington Lads using the same map for all of our navigational purposes.

[Pimbo]

Those are some nice builds, and once again you've made some excellent sails to do along with the ships.

As good as your building might be, I can't imagine Daring Billy will have a successful career if he keeps running afoul of admirals like that.

Yeah, Billy might have to try his luck with another admiral of the fleet! But like the admiral said, they can use every capable hand right now, so an opportunity will present itself soon.

The dockside is great - I like the gate, and all the details on the quay - but obviously the highlight is the vessel(s). The idea of refitting a damaged ship and painting it in proper Corrington colours is great. But to actually build another "copy" is really something extra! I think she looks nice in both liveries, and I really like the brick-built guns. The cabin looks great and the hull looks great from all angles. As to the rigging, that is really nice too - my only comment is, that the mainmast looks like its a bit too far forward.

Yes, placement of the masts is a bit unfortunate, the mainmast might be one or two studs too far forward, and the mizzen mast is way too far back. But, at least it allows for easy playability access to the deck.

Nice story about how you refitted the Oleon ship!!!

It brings a small problem for me as I indexed the Oleon ship as a Class 3 T (small brig). So this one I have to classify as 3 T as well. However you still can licence it as a 2 T for example and wait untill you earned enough to upgrade your licence :)

I'm aware, it is supposed to be a class 3, so while I'm unable to license it right now, I will definitely be licensing it in the future. Right now, it's time to start building a new, smaller ship!

Another fine example of us Corrington Lads using the same map for all of our navigational purposes.

After all, Corrington has the best mapmakers in the world!

[Kai NRG]

A fantastic intro and a great pair of ships! Those sails look really nice especially!

[Garmadon]

Welcome (officially now! ) to Brethren of the Brick Seas Pimbo, looking forward to seeing more of you practical jokes on those overly serious Corries! Very nice builds here, but the highlight is certainly that Corrington ship - excellent job all over that! The angles, cannons (and cannon ports), anchor, masts, and sails () are superb, and I must say that the color-scheme is a lot cooler than on the blue one! And then play functions are always a bonus! Great job here!