[A safe Haven] Cat C : The Bouncing Frog

[Tezclatipoca]

The Bouncing Frog

 

After the defeat of Ravaage and the fall of the Spire, the little principality of Falahuas in Avalonia became more peaceful. The Drow became rare and their dreadful raids on the countryside of the Avalonian province stopped de facto.

Lord Faladrin managed to secure some safe trade routes to re-connect the city of Falahuas to the rest of the Guild and, in his efforts to dynamise Falahuas, he developped the port activities by using Elvish craftsmen and ship masters to rebuild the quays and the shipyards.

In these elvish shipyards the best ship builder he had at his disposal developped a new vessel for the Falahuan fleet.

He called this new ship a Nao (meaning simply "Ship").

This new design was remarkable on the ability of the Nao to maintain high sea perfectly and to endure dangerous waves that usual cogs or carrcks would not support. Its lateen rigging allowed it to almost fly upon water and to navigate close to the wind. And its newly designed keel permits it to strongly stay straight in high sea even in bad storms.

This is aboard this brand new ship, recently baptised The Bouncing Frog (due to its ability to bounce from wave to wave) that our Hero, Faladrin, decided to run a maiden course. He was, of course accompanied by the ship builder himself, an elf engineer named Ehrtäin and of a capable crew of sailors and guardsmen.

The objective was to sail further than any other vessel of Falahuas had ever been and to make some maneuvre to train the guards at operating the heavy ballista mounted on the bow.

Faladrin was himself at the manoeuvre on the ballista and enjoyed being at the bow of the ship ! He was more than happy to set sail straight away on the sea and ready for adventure !

They were at sea for about 34 days and didn't expect the ship to be so strong and swift ! It was a pleasure to manoeuvre the Bouncing Frog !

Faladrin an Ehrtäin were discussing on the deck to organise the return trip when suddenly the watchman yelled :

"At Starboard ! Land !"

A land here was not expected at all !

Faladrin and Erhtäin decided to sail to this new unknown land. The taste of Adventure was too strong for the men... They had to see if there were something, or someone, on this new island.

As it quickly appeared the land was a little island made of rocks but surprisingly covered on most of its surface by red roses bushes and even gigantic unknown red flowers...

Faladrin named this island : The Isle of Roses.

It appeared it was an inhabited island and The Bouncing Frog made a soft tacking to set sail towards the keep they've seen throne upon the rocks above the sea...

 

To be Continued...

 

Thanks for reading !

The next part of the Story will be developped with my other "Safe Haven" challenge entries.

 

The ship is clearly inspired of the first real Portuguese Nao and Caravel designs.

It has functional anchors, orientable sails and a functional rudder.

C&Cs are welcome !

Edited February 2, 2018 by Faladrin

[Mike S]

A very beautiful sea vessel! Nice entry!

[TitusV]

Do I recognise some Eslandolan sails there?

In any case, you've learned a lot about shipbuilding in the pirate section of this forum, and are now back to show off your skills it seems  

Sweet ship, also really like the moving parts!

[Kai NRG]

Bouncing frog?   Love the name!  Great figurehead too, and a really nice ship!

[Henjin_Quilones]

The shaping of the hull, with all of the different angles, is quite nice, especially towards the stern. I loosely based my own entry off of the caravel, too, so it is good to see some other lateen sails out there, especially with rigging! My one bit of critique is that the spars do not seem to match up to the length of the sails very well, especially on the mizzen? mast. Nice work, though!

[soccerkid6]

Looks like a great, sturdy, seafaring vessel! Very smooth shape you captured with your hull design The sails also look quite pretty

[Garmadon]

22 hours ago, TitusV said:

You've learned a lot about shipbuilding in the pirate section of this forum, and are now back to show off your skills it seems  

This!  Just what I was going to say   Really nice work here, Faladrin, great looking vessel, and I agree with Kai on the name (and figurehead!) being great too!   Kudos on the rigging too - excellent job all around!

[The Maestro]

I must say, that is an unusual, but very good name. As a person with almost no ship building experience I cannot really offer critique, but I do like gold highlights and the frog on the front. I cannot wait to see this Isle of Roses 

[TitusV]

16 hours ago, Garmadon said:

This!  Just what I was going to say   Really nice work here, Faladrin, great looking vessel, and I agree with Kai on the name (and figurehead!) being great too!   Kudos on the rigging too - excellent job all around!

Hahaha, seems like I was first  But I feel honoured that you share my opinion, which probably means it is the truth  

[Tezclatipoca]

On 2 février 2018 at 7:35 PM, Mike S said:

A very beautiful sea vessel! Nice entry!

Thank you !

On 2 février 2018 at 10:38 PM, TitusV said:

Do I recognise some Eslandolan sails there?

In any case, you've learned a lot about shipbuilding in the pirate section of this forum, and are now back to show off your skills it seems  

Sweet ship, also really like the moving parts!

Haha ! You recognised my custom sails yes ! They are not really Eslandolan though... The green and white stripes are quite good for an Avalonian ship. 

It seems I can build better vessels now since I worked on some  ships in BOBS ! I always hope there is opportunity for me to improve...

On 3 février 2018 at 1:31 AM, Kai NRG said:

Bouncing frog?   Love the name!  Great figurehead too, and a really nice ship!

Yes a funny name ! It became evident I would name the ship like that when building the figurehead. I wanted to make a ship close to the Raenette ship I've built in BOBS and so a frog was obvious... 

On 3 février 2018 at 2:01 AM, Henjin_Quilones said:

The shaping of the hull, with all of the different angles, is quite nice, especially towards the stern. I loosely based my own entry off of the caravel, too, so it is good to see some other lateen sails out there, especially with rigging! My one bit of critique is that the spars do not seem to match up to the length of the sails very well, especially on the mizzen? mast. Nice work, though!

Thank you !

the hull shape is based on ball joints connexion and is quite sturdy.

You're right a spar is a little bit off from the sail size. Strangely I didn't noticed it before your remark... 

18 hours ago, soccerkid6 said:

Looks like a great, sturdy, seafaring vessel! Very smooth shape you captured with your hull design The sails also look quite pretty

Thank you !

You're right the ship is quite sturdy thanks to the ball joint I've used to get the curvature on the hull.

The sails are my custom sails printed on coton sheets with a T shirt decalco machine. My sister had the opportunity to get her hand on such machine and helped me making those sails. I am often using them on my ships, particularly on the pirate sub forum... 

16 hours ago, Garmadon said:

This!  Just what I was going to say   Really nice work here, Faladrin, great looking vessel, and I agree with Kai on the name (and figurehead!) being great too!   Kudos on the rigging too - excellent job all around!

Thank you Garm ! Custom rigging for the win ! (Always pain in the megablocks to get all those little knots...  )

16 hours ago, The Maestro said:

I must say, that is an unusual, but very good name. As a person with almost no ship building experience I cannot really offer critique, but I do like gold highlights and the frog on the front. I cannot wait to see this Isle of Roses 

Thank you !

Like I said, the name is a derivation from a former ship I've built in Brethren of the Brick Seas a year ago and which was named The Raenette (a frog species) and had the official little LEGO frog as figurehead. I just built a bigger frog for this figurehead ! 

you can see my other related Isle of Roses builds in my other entries : the Castle Rose as Cat A and People of the Isle of Roses as Cat B.

once again thank you guys for all those nice comments !

[Grover]

Love the sails!  The color pallette is great.  I can't believe the time it must have taken to do all the rigging.  It really adds to the detail and realism.  The only minor criticism is that the rail looks like it could use more support.  Nitpicking, I know.  I love it overall, though!  Thanks for sharing!

[Gunman]

I like the green details on your ship Faladrin,  also funny little touch at the front of it.  Good luck! 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Very nice vessel ...I like the frog's head on the prow!