Rarity and the Regatta

The next day Rarity returned to the dry dock, the funds in her bank account already allocated so she could get the best parts she could find—assuming she could find them.  She decided to go with steel as the material for her boat’s hull.  Unfortunately for her, so did many other ponies.  All that was available was either mangled scrap, rusted, or too weak to be useful as the outer hull.  The white unicorn grimaced at her slim pickings, and very briefly considered dropping out of the race.  She could still get a full refund if she quit before the regatta began.

“Not much left, is there, little lady?” A booming, gruff voice gave Rarity a start.  Its source was the old stallion she glanced at the previous evening.  “Ya ha ha!  Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.  I just noticed you look like you’re pretty new to the shipbuilding business.”  He was a big pony.  Big enough that Rarity felt a tad intimidated as he approached her, but as he came closer she could see there was a wide, friendly smile behind his incredibly bushy moustache and beard.  His bluish-gray coat and silvery mane and tail made him look like he was born to be on the sea.  His cutie mark of an anchor over crossed mallets sealed his image.

“Well, um, yes, I’m not much of a shipwright,” Rarity admitted, “And by ‘not much’ I mean ‘not at all.’  I design and make clothing for a living.  In fact I entered the Manehattan Regatta completely unaware I would have to build my own ship, much less arm and armor it.”  Despite the unicorn’s strained expression, the big stallion’s smile did not diminish.

“Ya ha ha!  And you’re still going through with the race?  You’ve got guts, miss, I’ll give you that!” Rarity couldn’t help return a small grin.  This earth pony stallion looked rough, but he was quite charming.

“Rarity,” she extended her hoof, which the stallion shook wholeheartedly.

“The name’s Keel Haul.  I’m the owner of the Manehattan Dry Dock.”

“The owner!  Of this entire place?  My goodness, I had no idea!” Rarity looked around as if she had been transported to another world.

“Ya ha ha! I get that a lot.  I’m pretty well off but acting high and mighty really isn’t my style.  Yep, the dry dock’s mine, but the way I run it it’s more like a public utility.  Anypony can build or repair any seafaring craft they have here and, if they want, store it in my warehouses.  It’s all for a reasonable price of course—I’ve gotta maintain this place somehow!”

“You’ve got the dock looking like a festival market, Mr. Haul.  Is this just for the Manehattan Regatta?”

“That’s right!  I enter the regatta every year, and it doesn’t feel right monopolizing all these tools and resources to myself, so when the race rolls around I open up the place for all kinds of ponies from all over Equestria to sell shipbuilding materials and accessories.  The naval base handles most armament, though.”

“Speaking of armament: it might be a bit late to ask this but the race isn’t dangerous, is it?  I came for excitement, not to risk my life.”

“Ya ha ha!  Not at all, Miss Rarity!  The guns and cannons may be real, but the ammunition’s completely safe!  Spells and all kinds of special magic make sure of that.  That doesn’t mean your ship can’t be blown completely out of the water though!” Keel laughed again.  He did a lot of that.  Rarity thought that Pinkie Pie might enjoy him.

“In any event, it looks like unless I want to sail a frying pan, I’ll have to use something else other than steel to build my ship’s hull.  I already have an aluminum frame.  What do you suggest as an alternative?” Rarity asked.  Keel Haul only needed to search his mind for a moment,

“How about fiberglass?  It won’t protect you that much, but you’ll be so light, using a fiberglass hull along with a good sail means you’ll be too fast for anypony to hit you anyway!”  Keel took Rarity over to a stand offering fiberglass.  Rarity ran her hoof over a panel of the material on display.

“Oh my, it’s quite shiny!”

“Yup!” Keel Haul nodded, “The other good thing about fiberglass is that it’s easy to paint n’ whatnot.  Even if you don’t have that long you can turn out a real pretty ship.”  Rarity read over the display sign near the panel.

“It looks like I’ll need some sort of mold to form my hull.  Do you know where I can buy something like that?”  The old sailor waved a hoof dismissively,

“Buy? Oh, don’t worry about spending anything on that.  Tell you what, I’ll lend you a brand new mold of my own that I was gonna use for this year until I changed my design.  It’s great for a small craft like yours.”

“My, that’s very generous of you,” Rarity smiled, “But why would you help me so much?  I may be new to the water but I’m still your competition.”  Keel Haul let out a great laugh again,

“Ya ha ha! I haven’t cared about actually winning the Manehattan Regatta since I was younger than you.  In fact, I haven’t even placed in the top 10 for at least fifteen years!  It’s the new sailors like you that I like to see win and take on challenges.  I sense you’ve got a fire, Miss Rarity, and seeing you win the race with a boat you built in a week will make a sailing story I can tell for the rest of my days!”

“Well, then I’ll just have to make a story worth sharing, now won’t I?” Rarity put on a determined expression.  She was getting fired up.

“That’s the spirit!” Keel Haul said.  Rarity ordered her fiberglass to be delivered to her warehouse.  The last major things her boat needed were armament and, of course, a sail.  Keel Haul and Rarity began walking around the dry dock picking up the smaller things Rarity would need for her boat.

“Now then, what sort of weapons should I use?” Rarity asked.

“Let’s see… A hull as small as yours made of fiberglass can’t take too much weight on it.  You’d either be too slow or too heavy to float,” Keel Haul stroked his beard as he thought, then stamped his hoof on the ground when an idea struck.  “I got it!  A couple of Gatling guns will be perfect!”

“Gatling what?” Rarity tilted her head.

“It’s a machine gun with a lot of barrels.  You’ll be putting a thousand rounds in the competition’s sails before they can even get one shell off! Ya ha ha!”  Keel Haul explained.

“Wouldn’t it be better for me to attack their hulls?  After all, they can’t very well follow me if their boats are at the bottom of the bay,” Rarity said with a mischievous smirk.  The old sailor pony shook his head,

“It would, but it’s not likely your tiny bullets will be able to punch through the armor of most of the boats.  Trust me, I know what usually sails in the regatta.  At least taking out their sails will slow them down.”

“If you say so,” Rarity nodded.  Keel Haul saw the young unicorn’s dejected expression.  She carried herself like a proper lady, but he could see she had quite the wild side that she didn’t get to let out nearly enough.

“Now that I think about it, I can give you something else you can use in a pinch.  It’ll give you that je ne sais quoi you’re looking for.  Follow me; we’ll get you outfitted.”  Keel Haul took Rarity toward the warehouses where ships were either under construction or being stored.  Along the way he whispered something to a stallion who worked at the dock.  He ran over to a couple of uniformed military ponies, who had him sign a form before they went to retrieve a very large crate from the roped-off area behind them.  The worker stallion followed Keel Haul and Rarity with the crate that was loaded onto a cart for easier transport.

“This is my warehouse.  Number 15,” Rarity said.  Since she had not yet unlocked her facility, the raw materials for her boat that she had ordered earlier that day and the day before were stacked in front of the garage door of the warehouse.  She magicked a key from her saddlebag and used it to open the personnel door on the building.  It was dark inside.

“You’ll have everything you need to build your sailboat here.”  Keel Haul flicked on the lights and opened some of the vents, allowing light to flood the spacious room.  Clearly nopony had spent any length of time in here for quite a while, as dust was the second most common thing in the air besides the air itself.  Because air was flowing in now it began to filter out, but thick layers of the stuff still covered the old and rusted tools, tables, and equipment that lined the walls and littered the floor of the warehouse.  In the center of the room was a peculiar-looking structure.  Judging by its vaguely ship-hull-shaped form, Rarity guessed that’s where she would be mounting the main body of her boat.  It would give her room to work under and around her ship while she fashioned smaller components on the tables and surrounding work areas.

Keel Haul coughed as dust motes filled his lungs.

“Guess this place needs a bit of a cleanin’, huh?”

“Indeed,” Rarity kicked her front hoof to get a smidge of dirt off of her.  The stallion that had been following them with the crate set it down near the hull rig.  The weight of the crate threw up even more dust into the air.

“What is that, Mr. Haul?”  Rarity asked.  Keel Haul nodded to the stallion, who took a crowbar off the cart and cracked open the wooden crate.  The sides fell away to reveal a long cylindrical tube that was almost as long as Rarity’s finished boat would be.

“That, my friend, is a torpedo.  Normally those things are used in submarines and larger ships, but with a little jerry-rigging and a can-do attitude, we’ll be able to slap one on to the bottom of your boat.  It’ll be your secret weapon!”

“But that propeller on the back—won’t it be cheating if I use it?”

“Ya ha ha! The propeller’s not for you!  It carries the torpedo through the water to its target.  Once it gets close: KABLAM!” The sailor pony’s sudden increase in volume echoed in the near-empty warehouse and startled both Rarity and the dock worker.  Keel Haul’s continued grin showed that he was unapologetic about that.

“Just make sure to aim it.  You’ve only got one and it won’t be much help unless it’s a direct hit.”

“Right…” Rarity nodded.  She was staring straight at the hull rig, already constructing her boat in her mind.

“From that look I take it my work here is done.  Well, that’s all the help I can give you, anyway.  Actually building your boat is up to you.  You’ve got six days, Miss Rarity!  I hope to see you at the starting gate!”

“And thank you, Mr. Haul.  I hope to see you at the finish line.  After I get there, of course!”  Rarity shook Keel Haul’s hoof again and gave a few bits as a tip to the pony who had brought the torpedo to her warehouse.  The stallions left and shut the door.

Rarity opened the garage door to begin to bring her materials inside.  Once she carted them in and organized them, she gave a deep breath.

“All right, Admiral Rarity, let’s build ourselves a boat!”