The Second Generation

The gnomish sailing vessel was a true technological wonder. (The wonder being, as Sturm said, that it managed to stay afloat, much less actually sail!) Years in design (longer years in committee) and centuries of craftsmanship later, the gnome ship was the terror of the high seas. (This was quite true. Most ships fled in terror at the sight of the gnome flag—a golden screw on a field of puce—but this was because the steam-generating boilers had an unfortunate habit of exploding. The gnomes claimed to have once attacked and sunk a minotaur pirate ship. The truth of the matter was that the minotaurs, rendered helpless by laughter, had negligently allowed their ship to drift too close to the gnomes who, in panic, released the pressurized air stored in casks used to steer the vessel. The resulting blast blew the minotaurs out of the water and the gnomes off course by about twenty miles.)

Let other races mock them, the gnomes knew that their ship was years ahead of its time in practicality, economy, and design. Just because it was slower than anything on the water—averaging about half a knot on a good day with a strong wind—didn’t bother the gnomes. (A committee is currently working on this problem and is confidently expected to come up with a solution sometime in the next millennium.)

The gnomes knew that all ships had sails. This was requisite, in their opinion, of a ship being a ship. The gnomes' ship had a sail, therefore. But the gnomes, upon studying vessels built by other, less intelligent races, considered it a waste of space to clutter the deck with masts and ropes and canvas and an additional waste of energy hoisting sails up and down in an effort to catch the wind. The gnome ship, therefore, used one gigantic sail that not only caught the wind but, in essence, dragged the wind along with it.

It was this sail that gave the ship its revolutionary design. An enormous affair of billowing canvas with a beam the size of ten stout oaks, the sail rested upon three greased wooden rails, one on each side of the ship and one down the middle. Huge cables, running the length of the ship and driven by steam generated by a giant boiler down below, operated this miracle of modern naval technology, pulling the sail along the greased wooden rail at a high rate of speed. The sail, moving from front to back, manufactured its own wind as it roared along and thus propelled the ship on its course.

When the sail had completed its impressive sweep across the deck and reached the ship’s stern... (There was one tiny problem. It was impossible to turn the ship around. Therefore the stern looked just like the prow. The gnomes had solved this slight hitch in design by fixing the sail so that it could go either forward or backward, as needed, and had given the ship two figureheads—buxom gnome maidens, one on each end, each holding screws in their hands and staring out to sea with resolute intensity.).... Where were we? Ah yes. When the sail reached the stern, it rolled itself up neatly and traveled under the ship through the water until it reached the prow. Here it leapt out of the water, unfurled itself, and thundered along the deck once more.

At least, that is what the sail did on the drawing board and in numerous gnomish bathtubs. In actuality, the gears that controlled the winding-up mechanism rusted almost immediately in the salt water, and the sail often hit the water either completely or partially open. In this manner it swept under the ship, creating a tremendous drag that occasionally pulled the vessel back farther than it had gone forward. This small inconvenience was considered to be fully outweighed, however, by an unlooked-for bonus. When the open sail came up from the sea, it acted as a net, hauling in schools of fish. As the sail lifted up over the prow, fish rained down upon the deck, providing lunch, dinner, and the occasional concussion if one had the misfortune to be struck by a falling tuna.

The ship had no tiller, there being nowhere for a tiller to go, since the boat had, in essence, two prows and no stern. Nothing daunted, the gnomes designed their vessel to be steered by the use of the aforementioned pressurized air casks. Located at each side of the hull, these were kept filled with air by giant, steam-driven bellows. (We said earlier that it was impossible to turn the ship around. We were in error. The gnomes had discovered that the ship could be turned by means of releasing the air in both casks simultaneously. This caused the ship to revolve, but at such an alarming rate that most of the crew was flung overboard and those that remained could never afterward walk a straight line. These unfortunates were promptly hired by the gnome Street Designers Guild.)