From the private logbook of Decadent Design, Captain HRH Aurora Dawn.
21 January 1005
Forgive the pitiful state of my writing. The blasted journal won’t stay still.
Woke up this morning by a mighty crosswind so powerful it tossed me from my bunk outright! Quite the rude awakening. One might think we were unwelcome. It was only two in the morning, which meant we yet had another four hours of journeying before reaching our destination. I hurried to the bridge to find Ms. Merry Sherry, the acting helmsmare for the night, in furious battle against the ship’s controls. The griffons warned us that there was a powerful storm mucking about, but I daresay they undersold the thing!
Mr. First Star, who joined me on the bridge shortly afterwards with Ms. Coxswain and Specialist Rusty Iron, was quick to check our navigation equipment. Rusty Iron, not unlike myself, is a noble brat who joined the military because it was the appropriate thing for young ponies of aristocratic upbringing to do, but while ten years my senior he is a deplorable airpony. My second, Ms. Coxswain, once privately summed up the stallion’s entire existence in the fewest words possible: unprofessional, unprepared, and unconcerned. He has but one claim of genius that grants him any worth on a naval airship, but that one thing makes him outright indispensable: Rusty understands the workings, both intricate and macroscopic, of our buoying system of envelopes and gasses and magic like no other soul on Celestia’s green earth. Speaking strictly of this cold-weather model of airship, he helped design the things. On a mission of such extreme environments such as this, that expertise is all the more valuable, and I sent him straightaway to inspect the airship’s envelopes and ensure we remained airworthy in this frightful, frigid gale.
Despite the disturbing shaking and howling, Ms. Sherry did a commendable job at the controls. After much discussion and Mr. First Star mumbling over the navigational charts, it was determined that we could maintain course by steering into the wind at a particular angle. Mr. Iron returned shortly after, teeth chattering from cold and outright demanding somepony fetch him a thermos of fresh tea, and informed us that the envelope could take the strain, but only if we reduced speed. It is regrettable, but in this one matter I trust the stallion fully.
Mr. Star revised his estimates and put us getting to our destination in another twenty hours, distressingly longer than the four hours I had come to expect upon my rude awakening. I argued long and hard with Mr. Iron, hoping to put on a bit more speed. I must admit I fear a bit more for the expedition now, as I greatly underestimated the ferocity of the storm that had forced the prior expeditions – all sled-based rather than airborne – to turn back. These gales keep the ship vibrating from bow to rudder, with occasional jolts and jostles that make further sleep impossible. When I glance out my cabin windows I see great balls of hail as large as my hoof, held at bay only by the blessed, strategically placed enchantments granted the ship for exactly such potentialities. If this is the state of things up here, I cannot imagine the frozen, wet, screaming hell that must be the ground!