Another Chance
Copyright© 2014 by Old Man with a Pen
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."
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