The morning broke with pale sunlight over the Portsmouth Dockyards, glinting off still water and the wooden hulls of inactive frigates. The tide was calm, but the atmosphere was not.

Today, Phillip Wellington was not here to observe.

He was here to begin.

Commander Vale escorted Phillip, Henry, and the engineering apprentices into a long brick structure that smelled of coal dust, metal, and fresh timber. Inside, dozens of Royal Navy engineers stood waiting — uniforms neat, expressions skeptical, curious, or outright cautious. They had heard whispers of steel hulls and ships that could outrun the wind. Most of them did not believe it.

Not yet.

Phillip stepped forward and laid his rolled blueprint onto the long drawing table. The officers watched.

He unrolled it.

A silence fell.

The drawing stretched nearly six feet — an early draft of what he had tentatively named Project Ironclad.

Commander Vale crossed his arms. The naval engineers leaned in, slowly, silently.

They expected a sketch.

What they saw was… a plan.

Detailed hull sectioning. Indicated armor distribution. Compartments marked for boiler rooms, coal reserves, and machinery spaces. Internal watertight bulkheads. Twin propeller shafts. One fore turret, one aft. Estimated tonnage: 4,500.

The naval machinists exchanged glances.

This wasn't fantasy.

Someone had thought this through.

A grizzled marine architect — Master Shipwright Barrett — pointed to the hull structure. "You're using iron framing inside a steel hull?"

"Correct," Phillip said calmly. "At least initially. It lowers the chance of warping during construction and helps train steelworkers before full steel framing is introduced."

"And this layering approach?" Barrett asked. "Steel over iron?"

"For reinforcement against cannon impact," Phillip explained. "No cannonball on earth breaks six inches of steel. Not unless it's rifled. And rifling doesn't exist here yet."

That silenced them further.

An apprentice machinist raised a hesitant hand. "My lord… This would not just change ships. This would... end wooden fleets."

Phillip didn't smile.

"It will."

Another engineer — young, impatient, with ink-stained fingers — stepped forward.

"What do you need?" he asked. "What do you need to build this?"

Phillip exhaled, then spoke steadily.

"To build it?"

He paused.

"I need men. Steel. Foundries. Six months of uninterrupted coordination between this dockyard and Imperial Dynamics."

"Six months?!" one naval officer coughed. "It takes us a year to build a frigate!"

Phillip looked him dead in the eye.

"That is because you build ships like carpenters. We will build this like engineers."

That sent a ripple through the group.

Commander Vale stepped forward.

"The Admiralty wants a working prototype engine first. Before they approve full-scale construction."

Phillip nodded. "Then we start with the engine."

Henry muttered, "Good thing we brought half a workshop."

The machine hall, Portsmouth Naval Yards

Ten hours later, chaos had structure.

Phillip stood over a table scattered with parts — cast iron piston rings, pressure valves, early condenser prototypes, and steel rods machined at Shropshire Foundry. Apprentices took notes as Phillip explained the pressure expansion sequence.

"Steam enters at the high-pressure cylinder. That's where most of the expansion happens — maximum power. Then… instead of releasing exhaust directly, we redirect to the intermediate cylinder."

One apprentice frowned. "To squeeze more power from it?"

Phillip nodded. "Exactly. Twice the work, same steam. And then…"

He tapped the diagram.

"…we do it again."

A naval engineer looked stunned. "Three expansions?"

"Triple-expansion," Phillip confirmed. "It increases efficiency by almost sixty percent. Less coal. More range."

Henry nodded. "More time at sea. More time for shooting."

The naval engineers stared at the engine diagram the way they might stare at a loaded cannon.

But Phillip wasn't done.

He picked up a steel rod — small, but perfectly machined — and placed it on the table.

"This," he said, "is the future of ships."

One naval officer raised a brow. "A stick?"

Phillip's lips twitched just slightly. "A shaft."

Henry turned to whisper to the apprentices, "Engineers get sentimental about metal sticks. You'll get used to it."

Phillip continued.

"This is precision-milled steel. It will transfer power from the engine to the propellers."

"Propellers," Commander Vale repeated slowly. "Not paddles."

"Propellers." Phillip confirmed. "Underwater, angled blades. Far more efficient. Hidden from enemy fire. And capable of pushing a vessel even against rough seas."

The naval officers didn't ask any more questions.

Not because they understood.

But because they wanted to.

Three days into the demonstration, the machine hall at Portsmouth transformed.

Naval engineers who once dismissed Phillip's concepts began helping assemble crude test components of the low-pressure cylinder. Apprentices from Shropshire collaborated with shipyard blacksmiths. Drawings for hydraulic turret rotation were debated — loudly, passionately — at midnight over cold tea.

Arguments broke out.

More drawings emerged.

And slowly, belief began replacing doubt.

One evening, Commander Vale found Phillip alone, standing on an unused dry dock, staring out at silhouettes of ships-of-the-line.

Wooden hulls. Beautiful.

Majestic.

Outdated.

Vale walked up beside him.

"They're calling it madness," he said.

Phillip didn't look away from the water.

"Are they?"

Vale nodded. "Madness, ambition, arrogance. All of it."

Phillip's voice was quiet.

"Then let us build it before they find the right word."

By the end of the week, Portsmouth had changed.

Not the ships.

Not the dockyards.

Not yet.

But the people.

Men who built ships with axes and saws now sketched boilers and pistons during lunch breaks. Young naval engineers spoke of engine tolerances and pressure ratios instead of wind conditions and masts.

Henry, exhausted, ink-stained, hair permanently disheveled, looked at the busy machine hall on the final night and muttered:

"You've done it, Phillip."

Phillip stood beside him — arms crossed, coat dusty, eyes tired but alive.

"Done what?"

Henry gestured at the hall.

"You've already changed it."

Phillip didn't answer.

But he looked toward the dockyard…

Where, instead of staring at sails, men now watched the engine components being assembled.

Not with skepticism.

But with anticipation.

Tomorrow would be the formal presentation to the Admiralty and Cabinet.

They had the prototype cylinder.

They had the turbine shaft.

This should be enough to demonstrate the feasibility of his warship to the Admiralty. And once they accept this, work will start.

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