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.

On the new tack, they looked about once more for Jones’s following sloop. As they had hoped, the strange zigzag they had described had left him far astern, but still in sight. Even as they watched, they saw Jones drop his spinnaker and re-rig it on the new tack. Once more, he was in pursuit!

“I’ve never seen anyone handle sails that well,” Jerry said in unwilling admiration.

“Do you think we can outmaneuver him?” Sandy asked.

“Well, we might keep up the sort of thing we’ve been doing,” Jerry answered. “If we keep changing tacks, we can probably keep him out of close shooting range all night. Then, by morning, we can hope to see some other boats and maybe get help. There’s only one thing wrong with that plan, though.”

“I know,” Sandy offered. “We’re all right as long as we don’t make any mistakes. But the minute we goof on one maneuver, we lose the race! Right?”

“Right,” Jerry said. “Still, I don’t see what else we can do but try. We haven’t got much choice.” As they sailed on in silence, Sandy reviewed their situation. The trouble with their plan was a simple one. They had to do a perfect job of sailing, and he doubted whether they were up to it. All Jones had to do was follow their maneuvers, and when they made their first mistake, he would close in. There was no hope, he could see, in waiting for Jones to make the first mistake himself. The man was too good for that.

If only they could find some new way to take the initiative, things might work out, Sandy thought. This cat-and-mouse game couldn’t possibly do any good. Besides, even if they could hold out till day-light, there was no guarantee that they would get help from any other boat before Jones could finish the job. After all, lack of light was all that was preventing Jones from firing at them now. When morning came, it would most likely be accompanied by a hail of shots!

The more Sandy thought, the less it seemed that they could find a way out of their desperate straits. Then his gloomy thoughts were interrupted by Jerry.

“Got any more ideas?” he asked. “I know it’s my turn to think up a good one, but I can’t seem to come up with a thing.”

“I don’t know,” Sandy answered. “It seems to me though, that we’re going to have to do something really different now if we’re going to get back to shore in one piece!”

Then he suddenly sat up straighter, pushing back his blond forelock. “Jerry! I think I have an idea!”

“What is it?” Jerry asked eagerly.

“It may sound crazy, but I want to go back on a downwind course again!”

Jerry looked puzzled. “A downwind course? Sandy, we don’t have a chance that way! That’s the way we were sailing when Jones first started after us, and with his spinnaker in place, he’ll have us in no time!”

“I know,” Sandy said, “but I have an idea that might work this time. I want Jones to get close—real close—to try this!”

Jerry shook his head. “It sounds nutty to me,” he said, “but if you think you’ve got something that’ll work, I’m game. Just tell me what....”

“Not now, Jerry,” Sandy cut him off. “Let’s just change course while I work out the details. If we don’t do this now, I might lose my nerve!”

“I’ll do it,” Jerry agreed, shaking his head doubtfully from side to side. “But what worries me isn’t that you might lose your nerve. I’m afraid that you’ve already lost your mind!”