Flintkote
Copyright© 2020 by Old Man with a Pen
Chapter 23
Cynthiamae went to the head, did her business and waddled to her stateroom. She was there a lot lately.
Last Tuesday she looked bushed, “I’m tired,” she said.
“You’re tired all the time,” I said.
“You try lugging around a 16 pound bowling ball. One that feels like it’s knocking down pins with its feet...” she winced. “All the time.”
And she looked at me.
“My turn next,” I said.
“Well ... before Zoe, anyway,” she winced again. She rapped her watermelon with her knuckles. “You in there ... quit that.”
Now she just lays down.
When she was out of sight I asked Tyche to see if she could find Junior.
“She’s sunning on the bow.”
“Teasing?”
“Yup ... you want me to run the boat while you go talk to her?”
Four ... the kid is Four ... The wheel is a foot taller than she is. She has a stool. A two step stool.
“Sure.”
“Ah ... competence. And recognition. I have the con,” she announced.
“You watch too many War movies.”
“Turn the glass... 4 bells.”
And she did it. She reached the ships bell and rang it. Ding Ding ... Ding Ding “10:00 of the clock.”
We don’t have an hourglass ... Well ... we do ... but not for time ... so she couldn’t turn it ... but that doesn’t mean she can’t say it.
I raised my hands to the sky ... she giggled.
“While you’re up there ... Set the spinnaker, Auntie Surprise.”
“Brat,” I said.
You wonder. She’s a better pilot than Zoe.
I went through the salon and forward ... out the hatch and there was Junior.
“You shave,” I said.
“I sweat,” Junior said.
“Maybe I should shave,” that was more a question than a suggestion. “I sweat too.”
I striped down ... what is it about big sailboats and all over tanning?
Flint has a center ... hull. On big cats it’s a ‘splitter’ that splits large waves ... keeps the spray off the salon. Flint’s not a trimaran ... the center is a runway for the anchor chains, and the port and starboard trampolines to connect so they don’t sag ... but it’s sorta deep too. Like three feet deep and nearly seven feet wide at the salon end. It tapers to a point and the jib furler is at the tip. It’s probably the strongest part of the hull.
Someone on the design team decided that all that strength and space might make a decent sail locker so the spare storm sails and the spinnakers are stored there.
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