Caravel

Sleek new caravel ships from Kulmnet are making trades in King's Bay from Soolada in as little as three weeks. The swift maneuverable ships can evade the perils of the northern passages, and are competing for the premium paid for transport through the Ring Gates. While their cargo capacity is lower than some traditional merchant ship designs, they can swiftly deliver goods and passengers with little or no mystic power.   In addition to the sleek hull design the caravels of Kulmnet may boast multiple lateen sails, allowing them to beat against the winds in unfavorable seasons and keep trade routes open for larger portions of the year. The ships are also more lightly built with butted carvel hulls, sparing more of their limited displacement for cargo, but also making them more vulnerable to rocky shallows, reef wyrms, and some magical attacks.   An answer to the often heavily spark reliant methods of rapidly moving trade goods used in western reaches of the Gold Coast, the caravel achieves the task without abundant application of magical weaves. Shipwrights in Girnava and Kulmnet saw demand from many trading companies or crews who have such distaste for sparks they sought to achieve the same efficiency of transport from more mundane methods and designs.   Enterprising shipwrights and merchants in other regions are beginning to copy the sleek design of Kulmnathi caravels while traders of those lands crew them with windwrights and wave wardens to bring the craft to exceptional speeds of ten to fifteen knots. The navy of Coronae Maris has also begun experimenting with the design, and has at least two vessels crewed with more heavily armed soldiers who need not be able to man the oars to achieve an overtaking speed.   The shipyards of Whispers Bay are certain to remain busy building new caravels. In a twist of irony much of the fine grade lumber that will be needed for the ships is likely to come from mage powered kilns, as well as the iron nails of the enchanted dwarven forges in Podgorze.