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.