Burn The Ships

The hunt for a ship started immediately after hanging up the phone with Nova, because to maintain any kind of hope, I had to know that there were suitable candidates out there.

Nowadays, ships are bought and sold like anything else, online.

Unlike everything else, it has not been made a whole lot easier by the internet, at least for our specific needs, because the ship must be big enough to contain the dream, but not so big as to scuttle that dream.

It had to be light enough to sail on the wind, but heavy enough to carry a big sound system, with enough space above deck for solar panels and stages, and with enough space below deck for the crew to live together for months without shanking each other.

Also, crucially, with a recycled ship, we had to consider the soul.

And while it can't be measured in liters or meters, her spirit might be the most important ingredient.

What is the legacy of sweat and blood infused into the pores of the steel? Because later, we must reckon with those invisible forces.

If you remember back to the first episode, the idea of Arcaquinarity debuted in the art of a utopian currency called loot.

And beginner's luck brought me two freakishly good candidates on the very first day of the hunt, both with similarities to the ship imagined on loot, and both already in Southeast Asia.

An upcycled steel cargo ship turned sailboat called Sinbad was anchored near Phuket, Thailand, while a wooden schooner with junk sails named Naga Palangi sat in the nearby Malaysian waters.

Here was the ship I'd imagined in lieu, split into two.

Sinbad matched the industrial hull, while Naga Palangi had the distinctive East Asian junk sails.