The Arrival

Maiden Voyage of The Dawnseeker

Dawnseeker Maiden Voyage

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Captain Ethan Gornas

Greetings dearest reader of this report. I am Captain Ethan Gornas, the captain, designer, lead engineer, and manager of manufacturing for the all new first of its kind The Dawnseeker. The Dawnseeker is the first airship known to humanity. Yes, dear reader, that is correct. With the success of the maiden voyage, be prepared, as humanity now takes to the skies. But, I will get to that story in a moment. First, I have to discuss the boring parts.

The Dawnseeker looks quite similar to traditional sailing vessels, and I assume that the casual observer would not note any particular differences. It is, I assure you, quite seaworthy though its primary use is for flight. It achieves lift through a lighter than air balloon. This balloon is filled with a proprietary mixture of gasses that generate enough lift for The Dawnseeker, as well as ten tons of cargo, passengers included. Propulsion is largely generated through wind power, though backup propellers are on board for deployment in case of need.

Now, let me dive right into the story of the maiden flight of The Dawnseeker. I hand picked a crew of ten people, myself included. The Dawnseeker is small, in terms of sailing ships, so a large crew is unnecessary. We choose the luckiest date on the calendar for our departure, the seventh day of the seventh month. However, as fate would have it, this day was not so lucky as it should have been. Rather than the bright sunshine typical of our beautiful summer months, we were graced with a rainstorm instead.

Now, dear reader, you are likely assuming that at this point, we decided to delay the departure. This would of course, be the sensible course of action. However, you would be incorrect. You see, fortune does not favor the careful. Nay, instead it favors the bold. So it was that my nine brave men and I set out, heedless of the cries of the careful.

It was then that we discovered a fortunate coincidence that none of us had considered prior to that moment. You see, having a giant balloon suspended above our ship actually protected us from the worst of the rain. A rather convenient turn of events, if you ask me. The winds were rather more rough than I had desired for takeoff, but I decided to grasp this challenge firmly, and take the blessed speed granted us while it lasted.

Now, those well acquainted with sailing will now be thinking to themselves “Ethan, don't ships have to furl their sails during the storms and focus on riding the waves”. To this, dear reader, I say that you are correct. However, you have missed something quite important in your analysis. We were not in the waves. We were, in fact, far out of their reach. (If it helps your imagination, you should now picture me smiling quite smugly. I am proud of my Dawnseeker, and foresee it, and others in the fleet to come, revolutionizing the way trade is conducted.)

I am certain that you now must be thinking that now is the part of the story where I tell you of some disaster that befell us for being rash and setting out despite inclement weather. I am always sorry to disappoint, dear reader, but no such crisis befell The Dawnseeker on day one. No, you will have to wait until later in the story for that I am afraid.

Day one went better that I could have ever anticipated. Though it was impossible to determine that day, due to the cloud cover, we were later able to discern that we had traveled about two-hundred fifty miles. That meant we were going twice as fast as the average seaborne ship. Even slowing after the storm we maintained about two-hundred miles a day. Add to its speed the ship's ability to go straight towards its destination regardless of obstacles, meant this ship was going to truly revolutionize everything.

But, enough about that. Back to my story. We traveled the for the next week with little of note. Now, I am sure you must be wondering where exactly we were going. I will say, we did not have a particular destination in mind, other than wanted to eventually end up back where we started. This is, after all, a test flight. We went up there to enjoy ourselves. And, as we figured out, to see grand landscapes from a view no human has ever seen before.

Anyway, to begin with, we rounded the southern side of the continent, flying over the southern sea. This portion of the journey, as I have already explained, went smoothly. With that said, I am now forced to consider. Would this be called smooth sailing still? We weren't on the sea, we were above it. But, we were still using sails. Well, whatever the case, I will ponder this more and come up with an answer later, should it be necessary. Anyway, we had smooth sailing for the first week.

I should also say, I would describe the beautiful sights we saw, but words would not do them justice. I would recommend trying to imagine them, but I doubt you are capable. I pride myself on quite the imagination, and I would never have pictured what we saw prior to us actually flying. So, instead, you may simmer in jealousy that the ten of us got to see something that you haven't. And, remember, dear reader, take a flight on a Gornas Airship when such a service becomes available to you.

Now, after a week of traveling along the coast, we began to tire of the view of oceans and beaches, so we turned our heading inland. Yes, that's right, we can go where sea bound ships cannot. I would say that the sigh of us above drew quite a stir, but frankly we could not see the people below, as we were too high in the air. So, instead, I will imagine we drew quite a stir. After all, it isn't everyday you see a ship flying through the air. Well, not yet it isn't.

After another week of traveling above the land, we came to the place where we would meet our true test. The mountains. This is where disaster would strike. Now, I know things have seemed pretty calm so far, but this is where you get to learn of the bravery and courage of my crew, so pay attention carefully.

On the morning of the sixteenth day, we found that the ground itself seemed to be rising to meet us in midair. Now, obviously, we were merely approaching an area where the altitude of the ground rose to the altitude we had been flying at until this point. Fortunately, we had expected this development, and in fact had planned to cross the mountain range to test higher altitude flying. So, we began to bring The Dawnseeker to a higher altitude. The first of our trials would come on that very day.

We quickly made it past the foothills and into the mountain range properly. I decided to take us through the passes, rather than attempt to fly over the mountains, figuring we should not push The Dawnseeker more than necessary for her maiden voyage. I navigated us carefully between the mountain ridges, keeping a primarily northward heading so as to cross the mountains quickly. I was alert for dangers, by this point. With the land itself being our height and greater for the first time, I was a touch concerned something was going to go wrong. My fears were not misplaced.

As we were flying, I began to hear a strange creaking type of sound. Now, for most of you, this sound will be quite foreign, and you should count yourself lucky in that regard. As I was looking around, attempting to locate the origin of the sound, one of the crew members gave a shout. “Avalanche!” Indeed, starting just behind us, a great mass of snow and ice had broken loose from the mountain side.

I am ashamed to admit that I froze for a moment as I processed the sight. I would attempt to lie to make myself look more heroic, but I prefer to deal only in exaggerations, not outright lies. The adrenaline that spiked in my system kicked me into movement mere moments later. I quickly processed the fact that the avalanche was going to catch us if I did nothing. So, I came to a snap decision. I began ordering my crew, one to take the wheel from me so that I could enact my plan, another to retrieve our backup canvas (this would be needed momentarily, as you will see), the remainder to begin furling the sails.

I rushed to the rigging. Now is perhaps not the best time to explain this, but I have neglected to do so until now, and the story will make no sense without it, so you will have to be patient. Unless you skip my explanation, in which case you will be confused instead. The balloon was attached to the ship by a giant net. It was the largest net I had ever seen certainly, and I had lived near the ocean my entire life. The net wrapped around the balloon in its entirety, and attached to the ship itself on either side. Inside the balloon is a frame made of aluminum to help the balloon keep its shape. Additionally, the balloon itself was connected to machinery back on the ship itself that maintained the internal pressure of the balloon.

Anyway, that is enough explaining for now. Back to the story. So, I rushed to the rigging, and began climbing to reach the balloon above. I could feel the cold snow pelting my face as it flurried around in the wind, having been loosened from the much more solid mass on the mountain side. Aggravated at the lack of a hood or any other form of face protection, I pushed forward. Finally, I reached the balloon itself, and this is where I did something quite daring.

Now, this may seem insane to some, or even most of you, but you must remember, this was a life or death situation. I cut a hole into the balloon. And, now you can understand why the explanation was necessary. If I had cut a hole into a bag of gas that was at atmospheric pressure, this would not have done much. But, our balloon was under pressure. Therefore, the gasses inside shot out, causing The Dawnseeker to lurch forward suddenly. It also had the side effect of knocking me straight off of the balloon. Now, obviously, I did not die. How would I be writing this to you, dear reader, had I died? Sorry to spoil that little tidbit of this story, but I live to the end.

I did, however, freeze from the shock for the second time in but a handful of minutes, not a good track record, I must say. On the other hand, my gambit worked. The Dawnseeker gained enough velocity to outrun the avalanche behind us. I was still falling to what could have been my death, but everyone else was safe now. Or, well they were until the balloon lost so much of its gas that The Dawnseeker began to plummet. Well, I was not ready to give up just yet, so I scrambled, and managed to grab ahold of the rigging perhaps twenty feet below where I had cut a hole.

At this point in time, perceptive readers will be remembering the crewmate I sent to grab canvas. To those perceptive readers, congratulations! To the rest of you, at this point, I shouted for said crewmate to climb up after me so that we could patch the hole I had cut. And before you start to think it, no, he did not fall and die either. None of us die, and if you were hoping for that, you should really talk to somebody about that. That is rather psychotic and bloodthirsty of you.

Instead, we managed to patch the balloon to a satisfactory level. (It still leaked, to be sure, but let me let you in on a secret. The entire balloon leaks, that is why we need a machine to help maintain pressure.) And, of course, I was lauded as a hero by my crewmates. Not unworthily either. My quick thinking likely saved all ten of us.

Our next issue was not to be so loud in announcing itself, however. In fact, because of its silence, it brought us much closer to death than the avalanche. That night, I was awoken by the night watch, who informed me that we were loosing altitude. Concerned, I began to check everything, hoping to find the flaw. The night slipped by, and morning came before I would finally notice the problem. As the sun rose, I noticed it glinting harshly off of something above us. Looking up, I noticed that the balloon had been covered in a layer of ice.

Well, that certainly explained our loss of altitude. As my brilliant readers will no doubt know, when gas is lowered in temperature, it also lowers in pressure. This is why, when you stick an inflated balloon into a chilled storage container, it appears to deflate. This also means the gas is at a higher density, in other words, we did not have the lift required to continue in the air.

We solved the issue temporarily by sending a few crew members up to remove the ice, but we needed a long term solution. Fortunately, by this point we had crossed the high point of the mountain range. Now, I know I started this by saying that fortune favors the bold. However, it is also wise to know when it is time to take your wins and return to safety. This was our decision at this point. We were able to chart a course around the mountain range and back to our home port.

We arrived home to great fanfare, of course. The entire city showed up to cheer us on. After all, it isn't everyday that a new hero shows up on the map, and when the hero is one of your own, you celebrate. And, if I may indulge myself for a moment, I am certainly a hero.

Now, I could tell you now about our subsequent flights, or about how we managed to solve the issue with the balloon icing up at high altitudes, but I also fear your attention may begin to wander. As they say, leave your audience wanting more, not less. Look forward to more publications of this sort coming quite soon. And, don't forget, when you get the chance, take a ride on a Gornas Airship. You won't regret it!