sweep. By now the sloop was some thirty feet or more away from the
freighter, and heading past the overhanging stern of the big ship.
Suddenly, the stillness of the night was shattered by a roar and clank
of machinery.
“It’s the windlass!” Jerry cried. “They’re getting ready to haul up the
anchor! Jones must be ready to go over to his boat!”
Even as he spoke, a flare of work lights came up over the freighter’s
afterdeck, clearly showing Jones and the Captain standing by the head of
the rope ladder, flanked by Turk and Bull. The Captain and Jones were
shaking hands, apparently having concluded a deal on the counterfeit
cargo that pleased them both. Neither of them had as yet looked over the
side to see that one of the sloops was missing.
“We can’t chance this any more,” Jerry said. “We’re bound to be
discovered in another minute, when Jones starts over the ladder! Let’s
get those sails up now, and do the best we can!”
“You’re right,” Sandy agreed, swiftly leaping atop the cabin roof to
reach the main halyards. Taking a deep breath, he hauled. With a
screech, the slides moved stiffly up the track, and the mainsail
fluttered overhead.
Moving quickly, Sandy grasped the jib halyard and hoisted it aloft while
Jerry was fastening the main halyard to its cleat. The sloop began to
make headway in the light breeze. Then, as Sandy joined his friend in
the cockpit, the sloop sailed clear of the shadows that lay below the
stern of the freighter, and into the circle of light that surrounded the
afterdeck. At almost the same instant, a shout rang out from above them.
“Look! It’s the kids!” It was Turk, who, seeing the sail like a luminous
flag in the water, had sounded the alarm.
“Get down!” Sandy said, pulling Jerry to the deck of the cockpit. His
action came not a minute too soon for a pistol shot rang out. It was
followed by a volley of shots, as more of the freighter’s crew got into
the action, but the boys were unharmed, although two bullets had hit the
cabin roof and one had plowed a furrow in the deck.
The shooting stopped after a few more stray shots were fired, the sloop
having by now moved out of effective pistol range. Making the best
headway they could in the light breeze, Sandy and Jerry looked back with
satisfaction to see the freighter’s crew working feverishly at the
davits to get the ship’s power gig into the water.
“If we can just get enough lead time,” Jerry said fervently, “we’ll make
it to shore well ahead of them!”
“What if Jones follows in his boat?” Sandy asked.
“We’ll worry about that if he does,” Jerry answered. “He’s a good
sailor, but we have a lead on him. It’ll be our first race, if it
happens, and I sure hope we win!”
By now the power gig was hanging over the side, its davits having been
swung into launching position. The canvas cover had been removed, and
several sailors clambered in, waiting for the boat to be lowered. With a
creak of blocks and tackle, the lifeboat was swiftly dropped to the
water. The boys could see someone bending over the engine compartment,
trying to get the boat started.
“Jones’ll have a long wait, if he wants to go after us in that!” Sandy
chuckled. “That ship is so sloppy, I’ll bet it will take them an hour
just to find the parts they need, once they discover what’s wrong!”
But apparently Jones wasn’t going to wait. He had sized up the situation
quickly—too quickly—and was going over the side and down the rope ladder
to the other sloop!
“Oh-oh!” Jerry said. “He’s going to try to catch us in the other sloop!
And we haven’t got more than a few hundred yards on him yet. This is
going to be some race!”
Some race! Sandy realized once again how different the meaning of speed
is to a sailor and to a landsman. Here they were, in a gentle breeze on
a calm sea, preparing to race for their very lives—and they would
probably not sail faster than he could walk!
Consulting the stars, Jerry set a downwind course, and the boat headed
slowly but steadily toward the mainland.
“We’d do better on some other point of sail,” Jerry said, “but there’s
one consolation.”
“What’s that?” Sandy asked.
“He’s got to sail on the same course we take, so he can’t take advantage
of any more favorable wind than the one we get. That, and the fact that
the boats are the same, at least puts us on an even footing.”
By now, Jones and a crew member were in the sloop, and were getting the
sails up. Sandy watched as the mainsail caught the light from the
freighter, followed almost immediately by the jib. The sloop swung about
into the trail of light that danced on the water between them and the
big ship, and set her sails for a downwind tack.
Small waves whispered softly at the bow, and bubbles gurgled quietly in
the wake. The mainsheet hardly pulled at all in Sandy’s hand as the sail
caught all the wind there was to catch. Hardly seeming to move at all,
the sloop glided slowly ahead in the soft night breeze.
And the toughest race they would ever sail was under way!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Race of Mistaken Identity
“Trim your main!” Jerry said. “Haul back a little ... more ... no, let
it out a shade ... that’s it! Cleat it down there!”
Sandy followed Jerry’s directions carefully, hauling at the sheet to get
the sail set to its best position. Like the airplane wing it resembles,
the sail must be perfectly shaped to get the maximum advantage of the
wind. Sandy had learned that this was true even on a downwind run, where
a sail let out too far will spill wind, and a sail sheeted in too close
will miss too much wind.
Rejoining Jerry on the cockpit seat, Sandy looked aft to catch sight of
their pursuer. He was surprised to see the amount of water that now
separated them from the freighter, which seemed a spot of bright light
far behind them. Against the light he could see the silhouetted shape of
Jones’s sloop. It seemed to him that they were closer than before, and
he motioned Jerry to turn and look.
“You’re right,” Jerry said, guessing at the question that had formed in
Sandy’s mind. “They’re closing in on us, all right. That Jones is sure
some sailor! We’ll have to do better than this if we’re going to get
ashore before they sail within pistol range!”
“What can we do?” Sandy asked, his brow wrinkling under the blond
forelock that hung over his eyes.
“The only thing we can do is put on more sail,” Jerry answered. “That
won’t be an easy job with just the two of us. And you’ve never handled a
spinnaker.”
“You’d better give me some fast instruction,” Sandy breathed. “First,
what’s the spinnaker?”
“It’s a big oversized jib, cut like a parachute,” Jerry replied. “You
saw a few out in the bay yesterday, remember? It’s that big sail that
flies out ahead of the boat. You can only use it on downwind sailing,
unless you’re a lot better sailor than I am, and it’s the best pulling
power you can have when the wind’s at your back.”
“What do I have to do to help you?” Sandy asked.
“I’ll have to put it up myself,” Jerry told him. “Your job will be to
hold a steady course and to keep the sails trimmed the way they are
now.” Sandy grinned. “I won’t look around to see how other boats look
this time,” he promised. Then he sobered. “I’ll do my best to keep her
sailing right. What’ll you be doing?”
“I’ll have to drop the jib, which will lose us some speed for a minute.
Then I’ll hoist the spinnaker, with a pole to the tack—that’s the
corner—to swing it outboard to where it will catch the wind. Then—but we
can’t waste time talking about it! I’ll show you now and explain some
other time!”
Both boys took another look back, but by now the night had swallowed up
Jones’s sloop, and all they could see was the glow of the freighter,
growing rapidly smaller and fainter behind them.
“I wonder if Jones has seen that?” Sandy said. “The freighter must be
under way. They haven’t even waited for him, to see how things turn
out!”
“I’m not surprised,” Jerry said. “If Jones catches us, they don’t have
anything to worry about. And if he doesn’t ... they want to be a long
way away from here!”
Turning their attention back to their own problem, Jerry asked Sandy to
go below to the cabin’s sail locker and pull out the sail bags, but not
to light even a match. The odds were that Jones still could not see
them, and it was better to keep it that way.
“How will I know which is the spinnaker?” Sandy asked.
“We only have two sails below,” Jerry answered. “We’re flying the main
and genoa jib now. That means that the only bags will have the working
jib and the spinnaker. The working jib is the small bag, and the
spinnaker will be as heavy as the mainsail.”
In the cabin of the sloop it was as dark as it had been under the cover
of the lifeboat. Sandy groped about, searching for the sail locker,
which was forward of the mast, in the peak of the boat. Finally, after
tripping a few times, and once bumping his head badly, he felt his hands
come in contact with the brass catch that secured the locker.
Inside were several sail bags, most of them empty. He came on one that
contained a sail, but it was obviously the small working jib. Worried
now, Sandy burrowed deeper into the locker, and at last found a bag that
seemed heavier than the first. Relieved, he carried it out to the
cockpit, where Jerry was anxiously looking aft.
“Look! If you look just about four points off our stern, you can see
her!”
Sandy squinted to where Jerry had pointed, and made out a dim white
shape through the darkness, surely no more than a few hundred yards
behind them!
“They’re closing in!” Jerry said. “I’d better rig this thing as fast as
I can!”
He took the sail bag from Sandy, and crawled forward over the cabin.
Sandy anxiously handled the tiller, hoping that he was keeping the
course. Overhead, a few dim stars made points of light, and he leaned
back to line up the masthead with one of them. In his right hand, the
mainsheet felt light—too light—and he worried that he had so little
control over it. What if they were to jibe now, as they had on the first
day’s sail? What if the sails were not properly trimmed? And how could
he be sure they were? How long would it take Jones to catch up with
them? Taking his eyes for a minute from the star and the masthead, he
saw Jerry kneeling on deck, doing something with the sail. Then he
looked back to the masthead, and fixed all his attention on keeping the
boat on a steady course.
Suddenly, Jerry was back in the cockpit with him, and the sail bag,
still full, was dropped on the deck at his feet.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Sandy, was that the only heavy bag there was?” Jerry asked.
“That’s right. The only other bag was so light it must have been the
jib. What’s the matter?”
Jerry shook his head slowly. “We’re in real trouble now,” he answered.
“That’s not a spinnaker at all. It’s a spare genoa!”
“But—but I saw the bag marked spinnaker the other day!” Sandy
spluttered. “Why would Uncle Russ put a spare genoa in a bag marked for
a spinnaker?”
“He wouldn’t,” Jerry answered. “And what’s more, he didn’t. I was able
to make out the letters on the bag, and they said ‘genoa.’ Brace
yourself for a shock, buddy. I _know_ we had a spinnaker aboard. And I
know we didn’t have two jennies!”
“Do you mean we’ve done it again?” Sandy gasped.
“That’s right,” Jerry said sadly. “We goofed again, and took Jones’s
boat instead of yours!”
There was nothing to say. They turned in silence to look aft at the dim
white shape that followed them through the night, and that slowly ate
away at the distance that kept them apart.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Slow-Motion Chase
“What can we do now?” Sandy asked.
“Just what we’re doing,” Jerry answered mournfully. “Just sail the best
we can and hope that he won’t close in on us before we come across some
other boat.”
“Maybe Jones won’t find our spinnaker,” Sandy suggested. “If he thinks
he’s on his own boat, he knows he hasn’t got a spinnaker below, and
maybe he won’t see any reason to go poking around in our sail locker.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Jerry said. “We can make a mistake like this—and
make it twice—because neither of us is really familiar with your boat.
But a good sailor like Jones knows his own boat the way he knows his own
living room. He isn’t going to be fooled the same way we were!”
“Still,” Sandy reasoned, “that’s no guarantee he’s going to go to our
sail locker, is it?”
“It’s almost a sure bet,” Jerry replied. “He’s probably got Turk looking
around now to see what kind of extra canvas we might have on board, and
when he finds that spinnaker, we can kiss our chances goodbye!”
“Well, he hasn’t found it yet,” Sandy said stubbornly. “And until he
does, there must be something we can do to get more speed out of this
boat!”
Stirring out of his gloom, Jerry trimmed the mainsheet and then the jib.
Then suddenly he brightened. “Say! I remember reading about one trick
that might help us. It’s called wing-and-winging. What you do is rig the
jib on the opposite side from the mainsail when you’ve got the wind at
your back. It’s supposed to act almost like a spinnaker.”
“Well, let’s do it!” Sandy said. “What do you want me to do?”
“You just hold the course, like before,” Jerry explained. “I’ll go
forward and re-rig. When I tell you to, you uncleat the jenny sheet, and
I’ll swing the sail around on the other side and brace it out. I’ll use
the boat hook for a whisker pole to hold it in place. Maybe this’ll turn
the trick!”
He clambered forward, and once more Sandy was left alone with the
tiller, the star and the masthead. For a few minutes he thought only of
holding the course, until he heard Jerry’s voice, “Now!”
Leaning forward, Sandy uncleated the sheet which held the genoa jib in
trim, where it had flown almost useless before the mainsail. He watched
eagerly as Jerry hauled the sail around to the windward side, lashed the
boat hook to the clew and swung the big triangle outboard. Almost
instantly, the jenny started to fill, and Sandy felt the little sloop
start forward.
Jerry quickly leaped into the cockpit and secured the sheet, trimming
the billowing sail. “It’s working!” he panted. “This may just turn the
trick!”
They listened in satisfaction to the increased sound of the waves
slipping past the sloop’s sides and muttering in the wake. They could
actually feel the difference in the motion of the boat.
“Jones has probably had his jib winged out all this time,” Jerry said.
“That’s why he’s been closing in on us so fast. Maybe this will keep the
distance the way it is until we can get ashore or get help!”
“I sure hope so!” Sandy agreed.
“Just hope he doesn’t find that spinnaker! As long as we’re both flying
the same sail area, and as long as we’re both heading downwind, there’s
not much he can do to catch us. Running before the wind this way, equal
boats with equal canvas flown in the same way will come out just about
the same. It’s on a reach, or beating against the wind that expert sail
handling really makes the difference. And I’m sure glad we’re not on
some other point of sail, because Jones would outsail us every time!”
With that thought to cheer them, the boys sailed in silence. Above them,
clouds occasionally blotted out the stars of the dark moonless night,
and it was hard to set a course by any one of them. At the helm, Jerry
steered as much by the feel of the wind on his back as by the stars he
could see.
Behind them always, never drawing any nearer, but never falling astern,
was the white blur of Jones’s canvas. It was as if the two boats were
tied together with a fixed length of cable or a rigid bar that would not
allow the gap between them to change.
The race went slowly. It was like a chase in some fantastic dream, Sandy
thought, a dream where he was running in slow motion, trying with every
ounce of strength to make his legs go faster.
But there was a difference, for here there was no exertion, no strain,
except on the nerves. Here all was, to a casual glance, peaceful and
pleasant. If any boat were to pass, all its passengers would see would
be two pretty sloops, out for a night-time sail.
Suppose another boat did come? How would they know? Then Sandy
remembered the flare pistol. He had put it on the seat when they had
come aboard! Maybe the bulky brass gun would come in handy again! He
searched the night for some sign of a boat’s running lights, but saw
only the same black sea and sky on all sides. Still, perhaps nearer
shore....
The nightmarish quality of the race increased as each moment wore on. It
seemed to Sandy that he was doomed to sail on forever, like the
legendary Flying Dutchman, never getting to shore, never getting within
hailing distance of another boat.
He strained his eyes against the darkness ahead, and then turned to look
astern at the following shape of Jones’s boat, stubbornly staying with
them at the same fixed distance. He almost wished that Jones would in
some way catch up, just to break the tension. Maybe in a fight, there
would be a chance! At least, they wouldn’t just be sitting and waiting.
As he watched, something on the pursuing sloop seemed to change. A
shimmer of white sails, then nothing.
“Jerry!” Sandy whispered, gripping his friend’s arm. “Look back there! I
thought I saw something change in his sails. I couldn’t tell for sure,
but doesn’t it seem to you that the shape is different now?”
Jerry squinted back at Jones’s boat. “I think you’re right,” he said.
“It looks as if he’s changed his sail trim some way. I wonder what he’s
got up his sleeve this time?”
“Do you think he’s found our spinnaker?” Sandy asked.
As if in answer, the white shape behind them altered once more. A new
piece was added to it—a long, flapping shape. As they watched,
fascinated and fearful, but unable to do a thing, the long white
triangle billowed out, changed into a full, taut shape and lifted high
above the deck of Jones’s boat.
“So that’s a spinnaker,” Sandy said.
“It sure is,” Jerry answered grimly. “Take a good look at it, because it
may turn out to be the last one we’ll ever see!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Turn and Turn Again
As Jones’s spinnaker filled and lofted, a fresh breeze came up from
astern, tugged at the rigging, tightened the sails and sent the boys’
sloop ahead at a sharper pace.
“Feel the breeze!” Sandy said. “Maybe that’ll help us out of trouble!”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Jerry replied. “The same breeze is helping
Jones, and he’s got an awful big sail up to catch it!”
“Even so, Jerry,” Sandy objected, “I seem to remember you saying
something that ought to give us a chance now....”
“If you do, you’d better let me know,” Jerry said, “because I sure don’t
feel very full of ideas now.”
Sandy wrinkled his brow and strained at his memory. There seemed to be
some fact, some idea half remembered from all Jerry had told him, that
ought to help. He looked astern, and the sight of Jones’s sloop bearing
down on them and swiftly closing the gap between the two racing boats,
seemed to have just the stimulating effect he was looking for.
“I know!” he almost shouted. “Didn’t you say that we can do better on a
reach than a boat with a spinnaker can do downwind?”
“That’s right,” Jerry said doubtfully. “But we have to sail a downwind
course to get to shore.”
“Well, what’s your hurry?” Sandy asked. “Why don’t we put off going
ashore just now? I mean, if we take off on a reach, maybe we can lose
Jones in the dark before he can change sails to follow us. If we can
just put some distance between us, we can head back for shore later!”
Jerry clapped Sandy on the shoulder and shouted, “You’re right!” Then he
looked back at Jones’s boat, clear in shape, but not in detail. “I wish
I could see how he has his spinnaker sheeted, but I can’t make it out.
Still, let’s just take a chance.” He looked at Sandy in admiration.
“Boy, you’re sure catching on fast! That was a real racing sailor’s
idea!”
Carefully selecting the best course to give their boat the most speed
and to lose the least time in putting about, Jerry instructed Sandy.
“We’re going to jibe,” he said, “but don’t worry. This is going to be
deliberate, not accidental. It’s the accidental jibes that wreck the
rigging. We’re going to put about this way so’s not to waste time
shifting the genoa jib to the other side. As soon as I’ve got that
whisker pole ready to come off, we’ll do it.”
He went forward, and after a moment’s work, quickly returned to the
cockpit. “Ready now,” Jerry said. “I’ll take the tiller and you take the
mainsheet. As I start to put about, you haul in on the sheet, until the
boom is right over the keel of the boat. Then I’ll put her hard over,
and you let the sail out evenly on the other side until I say stop. Got
it?”
Sandy wasn’t sure, but he figured that this was no time for more
detailed instruction on the art of the deliberate jibe. Holding the
mainsheet, and his breath, he silently hoped that he knew what he was
doing. One mistake now—the wrong kind of jibe, that could wreck the
rigging—would surely put them back in Jones’s hands.
He watched Jerry carefully, and, following his instructions, started to
haul in on the mainsheet. It came very lightly and easily. Remembering
the terrific force of the jibe on the first day’s sailing, though, Sandy
knew enough not to be fooled by appearances. He shortened the sheet so
that he would not be taken unawares when the wind caught the mainsail on
its new tack.
A few seconds of hauling and shortening brought the mainsail directly
over the center of the boat, with the sheet securing it tightly against
the dangerous sudden jibe. Then, as Jerry brought the sloop about hard
on her new course, the wind took the sail. The boat heeled far over,
leaning its lee side into the waves through which they were cutting with
a new speed.
Sandy held hard to the sheet, the pull of which was almost cutting his
hand. The load of wind in the taut sail transmitted its strength to the
sheet, and became a hauling, tug-of-war enemy.
“Let her out!” Jerry shouted. “More! More! Okay ... hold her there!”
Sandy felt some of the pull lessen as he allowed the sail to swing
farther out over the side. “Good,” Jerry said. “Now take the tiller—hold
everything as it is—while I free the jenny and trim it properly.”
Sandy, the mainsheet wound tightly about his right hand, took the tiller
in his left, while Jerry went forward to do his job. He was burning with
eagerness to look back to see how their maneuver had affected Jones, but
he didn’t dare. He had too much to think about to take his eyes away
even for a second from his own work of sailing. This was the first time
he had handled both the tiller and mainsheet and it was really the first
time he had actually handled the boat. There was a new sense of command
now and of real control. The feel of the boat was complete. It almost
seemed alive. His hands told him how a change of rudder position worked
a change on the sail, or how a shift of the mainsail, a few inches in or
out, affected the pull on the helm.
In a few minutes, Jerry was back in the cockpit, trimming the genoa
sheet and setting the sail in its best shape ahead of and overlapping
the mainsail. When all was made fast, he took the tiller from Sandy once
more, and the boys were at last free to look back.
What they saw was not encouraging. As they had expected, the change of
course had increased the distance between them and Jones, but the
distance was not great enough to take them out of sight. A few minutes
of looking revealed that they were not likely to outdistance Jones on
this tack any more than they had on the downwind run.
“How come we can’t beat him?” Sandy asked. “He surely hasn’t had time to
get his spinnaker down and his genoa up, has he?”
“He didn’t have to,” Jerry answered. “He’s using his spinnaker now as if
it were a genoa. It’s a good stunt. What he did was to bring the
spinnaker pole forward and lash it to the deck, so that it made a kind
of bowsprit. Then he sheeted the sail flat. It makes a powerful sail
that way.”
“What if he wants to go on the opposite tack?” Sandy asked. “How can he
put about?”
Jerry grinned. “I think you’ve done it again, Skipper,” he said. “That’s
the best question you’ve asked all night!”
“What do you mean?” Sandy asked, puzzled.
“I mean that he can’t put about on the other tack without an awful lot
of trouble. We can, and we will, and with luck we’ll lose him that way!”
This time the maneuver was a familiar one of bringing the sloop up into
the wind, shifting the genoa jib and coming off the wind to the new
tack. It was performed smoothly, both boys working like an experienced
crew.