blow from the same side that the sail is set on. This means that if you
feel the wind shift over that way, you have to alter your course quickly
to compensate for it. If you don’t want to alter your course, then you
have to do a deliberate jibe and alter the direction of the sail. All it
means is that you have to keep alert at the tiller, and keep an eye on
the hawk, the way I told you, so that you always know which direction
the wind is blowing from.”
“I guess I was getting too much confidence a lot too soon,” Sandy
admitted, shamefaced. “There’s obviously a lot more to this sailing
business than I was beginning to think. Anyway, a jibe is one thing I
won’t let happen again. I’ll stop looking at other boats for a while,
and pay more attention to this one! There’s more than enough to look at
here, I guess.”
Once more, Sandy cautiously took the tiller from Jerry. Then he grinned
ruefully and said, “Just do me one favor, will you, Jerry?”
“Sure. What?”
“Just don’t call me ‘skipper’ any more. Not for a while, at least!”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Man with the Gun
“Just keep her sailing on this downwind course,” Jerry said. “Head for
that lighthouse the way you were before, and keep an occasional eye on
the hawk. As long as the wind isn’t dead astern, we shouldn’t have any
more jibing troubles. As soon as we get out into open water, we’ll find
an easier point of sail. We can’t do that until we’re clear of the
channel, though. When we are, we’ll reach for a while, and then I’ll
show you how to beat.”
“What’s reaching?” Sandy asked. “And what’s beating? And how do you know
when we’re out of the channel into open water? And how do you even know
for sure that we’re in the channel now? And how....”
“Whoa! Wait a minute! Let’s take one question at a time. A reach is when
you’re sailing with the wind coming more from the side than from in
front or from behind the boat. Beating is when the wind is more in front
than on the side, and you have to sail into it. Beating is more like
work than fun, but a reach is the fastest and easiest kind of a course
to sail. That’s why I want to reach as soon as we’re out in open water
where we can pick our direction without having to worry about channel
markers.”
“How come reaching is the fastest kind of course to sail?” Sandy asked.
“I would have guessed that sailing downwind with the wind pushing the
boat ahead of it would be the fastest.”
“It sure seems as if it ought to work that way,” Jerry said with a grin.
“But you’ll find that sailboat logic isn’t always so simple or easy.
When you’re running free in front of the wind, you can only go as fast
as the wind is blowing. When you’re reaching, you can actually sail a
lot faster than the wind.”
“I’m afraid that I don’t understand that,” Sandy said. “How does it
work?”
Jerry paused and thought for a minute. “You remember what Quiz said
about the sailboat working like an airplane? Well, he made it sound
pretty tough to understand, what with all his formulas and proportions,
but actually he was right. A sail is a lot like an airplane wing, except
that it’s standing up on end instead of sticking out to one side. Well,
you know that the propellers on a plane make wind, and that the plane
flies straight into that wind. You see, the wind that comes across the
wing makes a vacuum on top of the wing surface, and the plane is drawn
up into the vacuum. You get a lot more lift that way than if the
propellers were under the wing and blowing straight up on the bottom of
it.”
“I see that,” Sandy said. “And a propeller blowing under a wing would be
pretty much the same as a wind blowing at the back of a sail. Right?”
“Right!” Jerry said, looking pleased with his teaching ability. “Now you
have the idea. When you have a sail, like a wing standing up, the air
that passes over the sail makes a vacuum in front and pulls the boat
forward into it. Actually, the vacuum pulls us forward and to one side,
the same as the wind from the propeller makes the plane go forward and
up. We use the rudder and the keel to keep us going more straight than
sideways.”
Sandy shook his head as if to clear away cobwebs. “I think that I
understand now, but it’s still a little hazy in my mind. Maybe I’ll do
better if you don’t tell me about the theory, and I just see the way it
works.”
“Could be,” Jerry said. “There are lots of old-time fishermen and other
fine sailors who have absolutely no idea of how their boats work, and
who wouldn’t know a law of physics or a principle of aerodynamics if it
sat on their mastheads and yelled at them like a sea gull! They just do
what comes naturally, and they know the way to handle a boat without
worrying about what makes it run.”
Still heading on their downwind course, they passed several small
islands and rocks, some marked with lights and towers, some with bells
or floating buoys. They seemed to slide by gracefully as the little
sloop left the mainland farther behind in its wake.
“Before we get out of the channel,” Jerry said, “I want to show you some
of the channel markers and tell you about how to read them. They’re the
road signs of the harbors, and if you know what they mean and what to do
about them, you’ll never get in any trouble when it comes to finding
your way in and out of a port.”
He pointed to a nearby marker that was shaped like a pointed rocket nose
cone floating in the water. It was painted a bright red, and on its side
in white was painted a large number 4.
“That’s called a nun buoy,” Jerry told Sandy. “Now look over there. Do
you see that black buoy shaped just like an oversized tin can? That’s
called a can buoy. The cans and the nuns mark the limits of the channel,
and they tell you to steer between them. The rule is, when you’re
leaving a harbor, to keep the red nun buoys on your port side. That’s
the left side. When you’re entering a harbor, keep the red nun buoys on
your starboard side. The best way to remember it is by the three R’s of
offshore navigating: ‘Red Right Returning.’”
Sandy nodded. “I understand that all right,” he said. “But what are the
numbers for?”
“The numbers are to tell you how far from the harbor you are,” Jerry
said. “Red nun buoys are always even-numbered, and black cans are always
odd-numbered. They run in regular sequence, and they start from the
farthest buoy out from the shore. For example, we just sailed past red
nun buoy number 4. That means that the next can we see will be marked
number 3, and it will be followed by a number 2 nun and a number 1 can.
After we pass the number 1 can, we’ll be completely out of the channel,
and we’ll have open water to sail in.”
“Do they have the same kind of markers everywhere,” Sandy asked, “or do
you have to learn them specially for each port that you sail in?”
“You’ll find the same marks in almost every place in the world,” Jerry
said. “But you won’t have to worry about the world for a long while. The
important thing is that the marking and buoyage system is the same exact
standard for every port in the United States and Canada.”
“What’s that striped can I see floating over there?” Sandy asked,
pointing.
Jerry looked at the buoy. “That’s a special marker,” he answered. “All
of the striped buoys have some special meaning, and it’s usually marked
on the charts. They’re mostly used to mark a junction of two channels,
or a middle ground, or an obstruction of some kind. You can sail to
either side of them, but you shouldn’t go too close. At least that’s the
rule for the horizontally striped ones. The markers with vertical
stripes show the middle of the channel, and you’re supposed to pass them
as close as you can, on either side.”
Another few minutes of sailing brought them past the last red buoy, and
they were clear of the marked channel. From here on they were free to
sail as they wanted, in any direction they chose to try.
For the next hour they practiced reaching. With the wind blowing
steadily from the starboard side, the trim sloop leaned far to the port
until the waves were creaming almost up to the level of the deck. Jerry
explained that this leaning position, called “heeling,” was the natural
and proper way for a sailboat to sit in the water. The only way that a
boat could sail level, he pointed out, was before the wind. With the
boat heeling sharply and the sails and the rigging pulled tight in the
brisk breeze, Sandy really began to feel the sense of speed on the
water, and understood what Jerry had told him about speed being
relative.
After they had practiced on a few long reaches, Jerry showed Sandy how
to beat or point, which is the art of sailing more or less straight into
the wind.
“Of course you can’t ever sail straight into the wind,” Jerry said. “The
best you can do is come close. If you head right into it, the sails will
just flap around the way that they did when we were pointing into the
wind at the mooring. You’ve got to sail a little to one side.”
“Suppose you don’t want to go to one side?” Sandy asked. “If the wind is
blowing straight from the place you want to get to, what do you do about
it?”
“You have to compromise,” Jerry replied. “You’ll never get there by
aiming the boat in that direction. What you have to do is sail for a
point to one side of it for a while, then come about and sail for a
point on the other side of it for a while. It’s a kind of long zigzag
course. You call it tacking. Each leg of the zigzag is called a tack.”
Sailing into the wind, they tacked first on one side, then on the other.
Each time they came about onto a new tack, the mainsail was shifted to
the other side of the boat, and the boat heeled in the same direction as
the sail. The jib came about by itself, just by loosening one sheet and
taking up on the other one. Soon Sandy was used to the continual
shifting and resetting of the sails, and to the boom passing back and
forth overhead.
Suddenly Sandy pointed and clapped Jerry on the shoulder with
excitement. “Look!” he cried. “There’s a whole fleet of boats coming
this way! They look just like ours! And they’re racing!”
Jerry looked up in surprise. “They sure are racing! And they are just
like this one! I guess I was wrong when I said they didn’t race this
kind of boat. This must be a local class, built to specifications for
local race rules. Boy, look at them go! I was wrong about not racing
them, but I sure was right when I said that she looked fast!”
The fleet of sloops swept past, heeling sharply to one side, with the
crews perched on the high sides as live ballast, and the water foaming
white along the low decks which were washed over completely every moment
or so. The helmsmen on the nearest of the boats grinned at them and
waved an invitation to come along and join the regatta, but neither
Jerry nor Sandy felt quite up to sailing a race just yet.
As they watched their white-sailed sisters fly down the bay, Sandy felt
for the first time the excitement that could come from handling a boat
really well. He turned to his own trim craft with renewed determination
to learn everything that Jerry could teach him, and maybe, in due time,
a whole lot more than that.
The next few hours were spent in happily exploring Cliffport Bay and
trying the sloop on a variety of tacks and courses to learn what she
would do. Eventually, the sun standing high above the mast, they
realized almost at the same time that it was definitely time for lunch.
Jerry took the helm and the sheet while Sandy went below to see what the
boat’s food locker could supply. In a few minutes, he poked his head out
of the cabin hatch and shook it sadly at Jerry. “It looks as if Uncle
Russ didn’t think of everything, after all. There’s plenty of food all
right, but there’s not a thing on board to drink. The water jugs are
here, but they’re bone-dry, and I’m not exactly up to eating peanut
butter sandwiches without something to wash them down!”
“Me either!” said Jerry, shuddering a little at the thought. “Of course,
we could settle on some of the juice from the canned fruits I saw in
there, but we haven’t taken on any ice for our ice chest, and that’s all
going to be pretty warm. In any case, we ought to have some water on
board. I think we’d better look for a likely place near shore where we
can drop anchor. Then we can take the dinghy in to one of the beach
houses and fill up our jugs.”
“Good idea,” Sandy agreed. “And that way we can eat while we’re at
anchor, and not have to worry about sailing and eating at the same
time.”
Several small islands not too far away had houses on them, and the boys
decided to set a course for the nearest one. As they drew near, they saw
a sunny white house sitting on the crest of a small rise about a hundred
yards back from the water. Below the house, a well-protected and
pleasant-looking cove offered a good place for an anchorage. A floating
dock was secured to a high stone pier, from which a path could be seen
leading up to the house. It looked like an almost perfect summer place,
set in broad green lawns, with several old shade trees near the house
and with a general atmosphere of well-being radiating from everything.
They glided straight into the little cove, then suddenly put the rudder
over hard and brought the sloop sharply up into the wind. The sails
flapped loosely, and the boat lost some of its headway, then glided
slowly to a stop.
On the bow, Sandy stood ready with the anchor, waiting for Jerry to tell
him when to lower it. As the boat began to move a little astern, backing
in the headwind, Jerry told Sandy to let the anchor down slowly.
“You never drop an anchor, or throw it over the side. After all, you
want the anchor to tip over, and to drive a hook into the bottom. It
won’t do that if it’s just dropped.”
When Sandy felt the anchor touch the bottom, he pulled back gently on
the anchor line until he felt the hook take hold. Then, leading the line
through the fair lead at the bow, he tied it securely to a cleat on the
deck.
Loosening the halyards, they dropped first the jib and then the
mainsail, rolled them neatly, and secured them with strips of sailcloth,
called stops. Jerry pointed out that it was not necessary to remove the
slides and snaps. That way, he explained, it would only be a matter of
minutes to get under way when they wanted to. With the last stop tied
and the boom and the rudder lashed to keep them from swinging, the sloop
was all shipshape at anchor, rocking gently on the swell about fifty
yards from the end of the floating dock.
“Let’s row the dinghy in to the dock and see if we can find somebody on
shore,” Jerry suggested. “Of course, with no boats in here, there might
not be anyone on the island right now, but I think that I saw a well up
by the house, and I’m sure that no one would mind if we helped ourselves
to a little water.”
But Jerry was wrong on both counts. There was somebody on the island,
and he looked far from hospitable. In fact, the tall man who came
striding down the path to the float where the boys already had the
dinghy headed was carrying a rifle—and, what was more, he looked
perfectly ready to use it at any minute!
“Turn back!” he shouted, as he reached the edge of the stone pier. “Turn
back, I tell you, or I’ll shoot that dinghy full of holes and sink it
right out from under you!” He raised the rifle deliberately to his
shoulder and sighted down its length at the boys.
“Wait a minute!” Sandy shouted back. “You’re making a mistake! We just
need to get some water to drink! We don’t mean any harm!”
The man lowered his rifle, but looked no friendlier than before. “I
don’t care what you want,” he called, “but you can just sail off and get
it some other place! This is my island and my cove. They’re both private
property, and you’re trespassing here! Now turn that dinghy around and
get back to your sailboat and go!”
This speech finished, he raised his rifle to the firing position once
more and aimed it at the dinghy.
“All right, mister!” Jerry yelled back at him. “We’ll get going! But
when we get back to the mainland, you can bet that we’re going to report
you to the Coast Guard for your failure to give assistance! I’m not sure
what they can do about it, but they sure ought to know that there’s a
character like you around here! Maybe they’ll mark it on the charts, so
that sailors in trouble won’t waste their time coming in here for help!”
As the boys started to turn the dinghy about, they heard a shout from
the man on the pier. “Wait a minute!” he called. “There’s no need to get
so upset. I’m sorry—but I guess I made a mistake after all. Row on in to
the float and I’ll get you some water.”
Not at all sure that they were doing the wisest thing, but not wanting
to anger the strange rifleman by not doing what he had suggested, they
decided to risk coming to shore. After all, Sandy reasoned, he hadn’t
actually threatened to shoot _them_—just the dinghy—and he couldn’t do
much more harm from close up than from where they were. Besides, both
boys were curious about the man and his island. They rowed to the
floating dock and made the dinghy fast to a cleat.
“I’m sorry, boys,” the man with the rifle said pleasantly. “It’s just
that I’ve been bothered in the past by kids landing here for picnics and
swimming parties when I’m not here. They leave the beach a mess, and one
gang actually broke into the house once, and stole some things. That’s
why I don’t like kids coming around. I thought you were more of the
same, but I figured you were all right when you said that you’d report
to the Coast Guard. Those other kids stay as far away from the Coast
Guard and the Harbor Police as they can.”
He smiled apologetically, but as Sandy started to climb up from the
dinghy to the floating dock, his expression hardened once more.
“I said that I’d get you some water,” he said, “but I didn’t invite you
to come ashore and help yourselves to it. You just stay right where you
are in that dinghy, and hand me up your water jars. I’ll fill them up
for you, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
More than a little puzzled, Jerry and Sandy handed up their two soft
plastic gallon jugs. Their “host” took them under one arm, leaving the
other hand free for his rifle which he carried with a finger lying
alongside of the trigger. Without a word, the island’s owner walked off.
“I wonder what’s the matter with him,” Jerry said.
“I don’t know,” Sandy replied, “but whatever it is, we’d better do what
he says, or something pretty bad might be the matter with us!”
Halfway up the path to the house, the tall man stopped, turned back, and
looked hard at the boys before continuing on up the hill.
“Mind you do just what I said!” he shouted back over his shoulder. “You
just stay in that dinghy, and don’t get any fancy ideas about exploring
around. If I find you ashore, I’m still as ready as ever to use this
gun!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Storm Fears
Unpredictable as the wind, the man was all smiles when he returned with
the two jars filled with water. But he still had his gun.
“I’m glad to see you stayed put in your dinghy,” he said. “I kept an eye
on you from the hill.” He handed down the plastic jugs to Sandy and
added, “Sorry I acted so gruff, but you know how it is. I live all alone
out here, and even though the island is only a little over a half mile
from the mainland it’s a pretty isolated spot. I have to be careful of
strangers. But I should have seen right away that you boys are all
right.”
“Thanks,” said Sandy. “And thanks for filling our water jugs. We’re
sorry we bothered you.”
They cast the dinghy free, rowed quickly back to the sloop and, as fast
as they could manage it, raised the anchor, hoisted the sails and
skimmed out of the cove. As they rounded the rocky point that marked the
entrance to the cove, they looked back to where the island’s lone
inhabitant was standing on the dock, watching them out of sight, his
rifle still held ready at his hip.
“Boy, that’s a strange one!” Sandy said. “I wonder what he’s hiding on
that island of his—a diamond mine?”
“You never can tell,” Jerry replied, “but it’s probably nothing at all.
I guess the kind of man who would want to live all alone on an island
away from people is bound to be pretty crazy about getting all the
privacy he can. And as far as I’m concerned, he can have it. From now
on, if we need anything, let’s head for the mainland!”
Dismissing the mysterious rifleman from their minds, they set out once
more to enjoy the pleasures of a brisk wind, blue sky and a trim boat.
The afternoon went swiftly by as Sandy learned more and more about
handling his boat, and about the boats they saw sailing near them. Jerry
pointed out the different types of boats, explaining more fully than
before that the ones with one mast were called sloops, the two-masted
boats were called yawls, ketches and schooners. Telling one from the
other was a matter of knowing the arrangement of masts. The ketches had
tall mainmasts and shorter mizzens behind them. The yawls had even
shorter mizzens, set as far aft as possible. Schooners, with taller
mizzen than main, were relatively rare.
Jerry also pointed to varied types of one-masted boats. Not all of them,
he told Sandy, were sloops, though most were. The sloops had their mast
stepped about one third back from the bow. Cutters had their mast
stepped nearly in the center of the boat. In addition, they saw a few
catboats, with their single masts stepped nearly in the bows.
Learning all this, plus trying to absorb all that Jerry was telling him
about harbor markers, sail handling, steering, types of sails and
conditions under which each sail is used, Sandy found the time flying
by. Almost before he realized it, the sun was beginning to set and the
boats around them were all heading back up the channel to find their
moorings and tie up for the night.
Everywhere they looked, the roadstead of Cliffport Bay was as busy as a
highway. Sailboats of every description, outboard motorboats, big cabin
cruisers, high-powered motor racers, rowboats, canoes, sailing canoes,
kayaks, power runabouts, fishing excursion boats and dozens of other
craft were making their way to shore.
The afternoon, which had started so brightly, had become overcast, and
the sun glowed sullenly behind a low bank of clouds. The breeze which
had been steady but light during the late afternoon hours, suddenly
picked up force and became a fairly hard wind. It felt cold and damp
after the hot day. Joining the homebound pleasure fleet, Sandy and Jerry
picked their way through the now crowded harbor, back to Cliffport Boat
Yard.
They arrived in a murky twilight, just a few minutes before the time
when it would have become necessary for them to light the lanterns for
the red and green running lights demanded by the International Rules of
the Road.
The boys decided to drop anchor in the boat yard’s mooring area, rather
than tow the boat back to the float where it had been tied. This would
make it unnecessary to tow the sloop out again for the next day’s
sailing, when they would start on the long trip home.
They dropped the sails, removed their slides and snaps on mast, boom and
forestay, and carefully folded them for replacement in the sail bags.
These were stowed below in their locker just forward of the cabin. Then
Sandy and Jerry turned their attention to getting the boat ready for the
night.
Sandy helped Jerry rest the boom in its “crutch,” a piece of wood shaped
like the letter _Y_, which was placed standing upright in a slot in the
stern seat. This kept the boom from swinging loose when the boat was
unattended, and thus protected both the boat, the boom and the rigging
from damage. All the running gear was then lashed down or coiled and put
away, the sliding cabin door and hatch cover were closed in place, and
the sloop was ready to be left.
“That’s what’s meant by ‘shipshape,’” Jerry said with satisfaction.
As the boys rowed the dinghy back to the float, they felt the first fat
drops of rain and they noticed how choppy the still waters of the bay
had become. Jerry cast a sailor’s eye at the ominously darkening sky.
“That’s more than evening coming on,” he said. “Unless I miss my guess,
we’re in for a good storm tonight. To tell you the truth, I’m glad we’re
staying ashore!”
They lifted the dinghy from the water, turned it over on the float and
placed the stubby oars below it. Then, picking up their sea bags, they
ran for the shelter of the shed as the first torrential downpour of the
storm washed Cliffport in a solid sheet of blinding rain.
Later that night, after a change of clothes, dinner, and a movie at
Cliffport’s only theater, the boys sat on their beds in the hotel room
and listened to the howling fury of the storm. Raindrops rattled on the
windowpanes like hailstones, and through the tossing branches of a tree
they could see the riding lights of a few boats in the harbor, rocking
violently to and fro. As they watched, the wind sent a large barrel
bowling down the street to smash against a light pole, bounce off and
roll, erratic as a kicked football, out of sight around a corner.