The ship
The Second Dawn
A brig with blue-edged sails, a sun-carved figurehead, and forty years of Martin’s life in her timbers.
Her story
She was built in Port Mercy as the Morning Star, a merchant brig, and spent fifteen unremarkable years hauling tea and timber. Then came the fire at Brass Anchorage — the night the old Star burned to the waterline saving a grain ship’s crew, her captain — a young Martin Tidewell, first mate at the time — refusing to leave until the last soul was off.
The underwriters wrote her off. Martin bought the hulk for a song, rebuilt her plank by plank with Sef the chandler’s rope at cost and half of Port Mercy volunteering weekends, and renamed her the Second Dawn: because she, like her captain, got a second sunrise.
Particulars (fictional)
| Detail | Note |
|---|---|
| Rig | Brig — square-rigged on both masts, blue edging on every sail |
| Figurehead | A rising sun, carved by Martin himself; repainted gold every spring |
| Bell | Salvaged from the Morning Star; still rings slightly flat on the F note |
| Lucky charm | A rock shaped like Port Mercy’s harbormaster, in the hold |
| Fastest passage | Port Mercy to the Lantern Isles in six days, riding the Tidewell Drift |
| Slowest passage | Eleven days becalmed in the Glass Calm; the crew still talks about the whale |
Her quirks
- She heels two degrees to port in a fresh breeze and Martin refuses to correct it — “she likes the view.”
- The galley stove smokes if you look at it wrong; Mama Josie has learned to look at it right.
- There is a loose deck plank aft of the mainmast that every new hand trips on exactly once. It is traditional not to warn them. Martin tripped on it himself, in 40 years, never — he steps over it in his sleep.
- Her bell rings flat, and the crew swears it rings flatter before weather. Pip keeps a log. Pip’s log is disturbingly accurate.