Chapter 46

When they pulled along side, the skipper wanted to know why I shot the kid with the flare.

"Because you were heading right for us and we dent."

"Why didn't you get out of the way?"

"Because we were to your right."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"We had the right-of-way ... Rules of the Sea. Besides, we were still under sail and you were motoring. Sailboats under power are motor craft, and sail has right-of-way over power boats."

"What?!?"

"Powerboats yield or maneuver to avoid sail. You weren't."

"You sure about that?"

"How long have you had your boat?"

"A couple of months."

"You had a professional captain?"

"Yeah ... I don't know anything about sailing."

"I never would have guessed."

"I joined the race to give the boy something to write his 'What I did on my Summer Vacation' paper on."

"I'd say he has an experience that's better than summer camp."

"Yeah, Well ... I guess I'd better get back to racing."

"Doesn't matter, you're disqualified."

"Huh?"

"When the examiner checked your boat he wrote down the engine hours."

"What does that matter?

"Sailboat race ... not motorboat race. As soon as you started your engine you disqualified yourself."

Up top, Grace hollered from the masthead, "Unless you were getting out of the way of a Laker or a Saltie."

Her voice, filtered down through the dense fog, had a ghostly muffled echo to it.

"I know what a Laker is, what's a Saltie?"

"Ocean going vessel ... about 5000 tons, up the SaintLawrence river to Montreal, through the Casson Canal, they call it the Lachine Canal now." Grace hollered.

"Fuck!!"

"Are you going back or keep going?" David asked.

"Why?"

"We picked up the survivors from a collision between a Saltie and a Class C. There's 13 extra people onboard. If you're going back ... would you take 'em?" Grace asked.

"Why didn't the ship stop?"

"They probably didn't even feel it," I said.

The boat owner looked amazed.

"This is all very interesting," Grace said from the masthead. "Are you going to let me down?"

The owner, by now quite mystified by the voice of doom in the gloom, realized that Grace might not have pulled the trigger but she did the aiming, hollered up the mast, "You ... girlie ... you're the one responsible for scaring the shit out of my boy."

"Did he? That must have been messy." She hollered back. "David, let me down ... the breeze is starting up here."

"Don't forget to clip the halyard to the head when we let you down."

"Just get me down, ok?" she begged, "It's getting breezy up her ... and it's cold."

"Cold?"

"Yeah."

I released the halyard and let Grace down a little fast but snubbed her off before she bounced.

"Mister ... the weatherman lied again ... there's a blow coming down from Canada. I'd get gone which ever way you're going and take these extras with you, at least they know how to sail."

The transfer was made, Grace ran for a sweater and I hooked up the head and hoisted to a storm main and roller-furled to a storm jib. By the time Grace was back, we had a scrap of canvas showing and we were exceeding hull speed in front of some pretty good rollers.

From Port Washington to the north pole there's a couple of barbed wire fences to stop the north easter blast, but one of those fences is down and the 'tother 'un was collected. Port Wash has a couple of reefs that have collected more than many unwary boats, both steam and sail but we made it through the harbor opening and mostly coasted the rest of the way to the Club where we were logged in, got our timestamp and signatures and asked about a place to moor or dock ... we were sitting this one out.

Why?

There's 200 miles of open water from the straits to Port Wash ... the wind blows straight down the lake. The breeze was coming at 41 degrees of dead north and 65 knots. I'll stay here, thank you very much.

In Graces quest for lightening the boat I still had my wallet ... and card. We found a close hotel and a decent restaurant and waited out the weather. We still won our class ... but not the race record. Three days of sitting stopped that.

Oh, the other boat? They were right behind us ... the wealthy individual came up to me and asked if I wanted a bigger boat ... free.

"Take it ... I never want to see another sail ... I'm moving to Kansas."