Whee, this is the closest I have gotten to the proper update schedule in weeks … T_T

I would perhaps have finished it on time yesterday if I had not totally lost track of time while researching the possible cargo capacity of the Eagle Ray. I couldn’t find any reliable numbers for actual xebecs, so I looked at trading schooners and brigantines of similar size, and rounded down to be safe. After all, the Eagle Ray has very generous accomodations for the crew … :3 (though it’s weighed up a bit by the fact that the crew is very small).

The Eagle Ray used to have oars like a proper xebec, but it has been refitted to sail-only. With oars, it would need a ginormous crew – in one of my earliest drafts for the story it actually had oars, and the rowers were the restless ghosts of galley slaves.
Also, it doesn’t carry any guns. Unless Shannon has hidden away one or two for emergencies …

Since Major Suthidamrongsawadi’s intervention in chapter 2, they are officially under the flag of URSA (though I wonder what URSA authorities would say about that).
Speaking of URSA, check out the “Places” page I just made, with brief overviews of the places where this story is set!

If I started drawing this comic today, I would give them a much smaller ship, and it would be a schooner, since a gaff rig is easier to handle with just a 4–6 man crew than a lateen rig. (Perhaps something like the topsail schooner La Recouvrance, which you can visit virtually on its official website – which makes me really really excited!!!)
But maybe a smaller ship wouldn’t be as much fun. :3

Some ship websites with virtual tours and/or nice galleries (most of them are passenger ships):

La Recouvrance
Argo and Ocean Star
Isaac H. Evans
Lynx
Pacific Swift, Pacific Grace, St. Roch and Bluenose II
The Spirit of South Carolina

I could only dream of reference material like this when I first started drawing this comic. Though I did once randomly visit Lady Ellen with my mum back then. Her home port used to be across the quay from a hotel where mum used to work. We went on board on a whim. The crew was hung over and said we could clean if we wanted to. :o)