Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

“I’ve never flown one,” Sally admitted.

“I have,” Rob said. “I crewed Sunday races on an old ketch out of Whangarei as a teenager. Kickass when conditions were just right.”

“What we want to do,” Sally said, “is be ultra conservative pre-start when all the hotshots are crowding and testing. We’ll pull away early, give up our position if we’re threatened, yield to all right-of-way calls even when they’re total bullshit. Miss a couple of tacks, be clumsy. Then maybe later on we can take somebody by surprise.”

“The clumsy part should be easy,” Clarke muttered. He was still smarting under Sally’s earlier instructions. “You’re ballast,” she’d told him. “Stay out of the fucking way on the high side. I’ll tell you if I need you.”

The start went better than they could have hoped. Most of the hotter boats were engaged in their own dogfights, and Sally got Arrow to the weather end of the line a few seconds after the gun on starboard tack. They were in the middle of the pack and Arrow, hull down on a hard beat, had all of her waterline working and surprised one of the high-flyers who’d expected to clear her on the first crossing tack. With right-of-way and hard sheeted in with lines strumming and foam flying, even Clarke was grinning as three of the fleet had to duck her stern.

“Run her in as close into the beach as you dare, Jared,” Sally said. “This is the favoured tack and every boat length matters. Your boat, your call.”

Jared, crouched in place at the tiller, nodded, his eyes glued to the depth sounder. A slow rise in a muddy bottom according to the chart. A Hunter 42 was half a length back and gaining.

“Throw them a dummy in five, four, three, two . . . Tack!” Jared yelled and brought Arrow ten degrees closer to the wind. Danny slipped the sheets and the sails quivered and the Hunter was gone. Jared fell off and Arrow heeled hard again and the depth sounder showed forty and then thirty and then —

“Tack!” Jared yelled, and Arrow spun and fell off onto port tack and the depth sounder showed fifteen and then Jared couldn’t look anymore. He saw the Hunter ahead by six boat lengths but too far downwind to tack back across them.

“Good one,” Sally said. “I thought you guys didn’t race.”

“We don’t. That was it, we’re a one-trick pony. We’re done. It’s all up to you now.”

Four of the boats were running well ahead of the rest of the fleet, clearly in a league of their own. Of the remaining ten, Arrow was a surprising fourth.

“That lot all have sick ratings,” Sally said, gesturing forward. “If we finish anywhere within sight of them, we’ll beat them out on handicap.”

“As long as we beat the Hunters,” Jared said.

“Oh, they’ll have to give us a good nine minutes,” Sally said, waving the race sheet. “I’m sure we can keep well inside of that.”

“Fuck nine minutes,” Jared said.

For the next hour, Arrow continued in the middle of the pack, another two boats slipping past on the close reach to Entrance but the remaining half dozen unable to gain ground. Conditions outside the harbour were blustery, one of the Seattle racers rolling so hard on the downwind leg she dipped her spinnaker pole in the water and snapped it. A sister boat hard on her heels ran over the spinnaker and caught it on the keel and slewed wildly to leeward causing a third boat to jibe frantically and loose her sheets in an unsuccessful attempt to stay clear. When the mess was finally cleared up, two of the boats called it quits and made their way back to the harbour.

“Wimps,” Clarke said.

When they made their way around the mark buoy at the end of the spinnaker leg, Arrow was in fourth place. She managed to gain two positions in the hard beat back to Entrance Island, the wind now gusting into the low twenties and the tide beginning to ebb against the wind and pushing up the seas. The two Catalinas they passed had reefs in their main, but Arrow with her heavier rig still carried full sail.

“Another ten knots of wind and we might actually win this thing,” Danny said.

“Be careful what you wish for, mate,” Rob said.

In spite of the weather and the mizzen staysail, they were unable to overtake Kerry, the Seattle boat that remained in front of them on the broad reach that was the second-last leg. Well sailed with a large crew, she stayed within herself, covered their every move, and luffed up on them each time they attempted to get by.

“If I thought it would do any good, I’d strip off and flash my tits to break their concentration,” Sally said after yet another failed attempt to get an overlap. “But I’m so flat-chested they’d probably think I was a boy. Anyway, that was a hell of a race — second place, who’da thunk it?”

“It’s not over yet,” Jared said. The beers had done their job.

“Yeah, it pretty much is. A half mile to go before the turn into the harbour at the light, no way we’re getting past them. They’re covering our every move. And they’re faster than us. Once they round the light, they’re as good as home. No time, no room inside the harbour. We just don’t have the speed to get inside after the light. They’ll stay on starboard tack around the corner, one jibe to the line. Second place is unbelievable. We’ll win easily on corrected time.”

“The Gabriola Island ferry should be leaving now,” Clarke said. “It’s exactly 1400 hours. I was reading the harbour regulations last night,” he said defensively in response to the amused looks. “She passes a couple of boat lengths off the light. There’s a notice posted to stay outside of her.”

“Fuck a notice,” Danny said.

“There’s her siren, she’s leaving,” Sally said. “Kerry is too far in already