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Baffled, Jim sat alone in the dark, trying to figure out what had changed
so drastically. The wind. The southeast trade wind, that constant of every
waking and sleeping hour on the boat had stopped.
The sails went slack. The boat began rocking, uncomfortably, pitching
fore and aft, which caused the sails to slat and bang. When he looked
up at them, he saw that the rest of the stars had vanished. Suddenly,
the still air was stirred by a cold breeze.
Will ran up on deck. "What the--bloody hell, you should have waked
me! It's going to hit us like a freight train."
Now Jim saw what he had missed. A quarter mile off to the right, so bright
as to glow beneath the black sky, a heavy, bone-white line was bearing
down on them like a huge grin in a dark face.
"Furl the jib! I'll reef the main!" Will paused only to put
Jim's hand on the proper line.
Then he switched on the work lights--which shone down from the spreaders
illuminating the decks and a patch of sea around the boat--and leapt out
of the cockpit and hastily lowered the mainsail halfway down the mast.
This time, instead of an out-of-control avalanche, Will kept the sailcloth
in tight control as he made it smaller, tugging on the reefing lines and
securing it firmly to the boom, even as he shot anxious looks at the swiftly
advancing white line.
Jim, aware he had screwed up bigtime by not paying attention to his surroundings,
tried to furl in the jib. The line he was tugging turned a spool on the
front of the boat which was supposed to crank the sail around its forestay
like a vertical window shade. But it was balking, jamming, turning fitfully,
and jamming again.
The next wind puff was warm and considerably stronger, and when it filled
the sail there was no budging it.
"Furl it all the way. Hurry, hurry. Jesus, what were you thinking?
When you see a squall coming at you, you have to act."
"I didn't see it."
A third puff struck the boat, icy cold and so strong that it whistled
a low note in the rigging. It filled the reefed mainsail, and ballooned
the jib that Jim was struggling to furl.
"Will, I can't move it."
The wind had filled the head sail rock hard and though Jim put all his
strength against the winch handle, it wouldn't budge. The next gust shoved
the boat so violently that it overrode the auto-helm and turned downwind.
Suddenly the sea was frothy white.
"Hang on!" yelled Will, lunging for the wheel.
Another gust from a new direction banged into the sails. The boom swung
across the boat, slamming from left to right with a crash that shook the
deck, and Hustle jibed about. Racing out of control, smashing sea to sea,
she stampeded from the wind.
"Close that hatch!" Will roared from the helm. Jim slid the
main hatch cover closed. A wave broke into the cockpit, and surged around
his legs and poured down the companionway into the cabin.
"The washboards," Will yelled over the roar of the water. "Under
the bench."
Kneeling on the floor of the cockpit, Jim opened the cockpit bench and
found the wooden boards and worked them clumsily into the vertical slots
that flanked the companionway opening. When he was done and had the hatch
closed tight, he realized that Will had somehow battled the boat around,
back on course, and was forcing her to head into the wind so they could
try again to furl the jib.
The wind was whining in the rigging and blowing cold spray. Neither man
had had time to don a windbreaker. "Take the helm and try and hold
her in the wind while I--"
The wind shifted, again, and knocked the boat half over. Jim was astonished
to see the deck at so steep an angle it was nearly vertical. He fell down,
toward the water, and smashed painfully into the lifelines that fenced
the deck.
Will, braced at the helm, played the wheel until the boat began to level
off. "We have to get that sail in. Here, you--"
An explosion cut off his words, a concussive boom. Where the jib had billowed
full and stiff a second earlier, all that was left of the white sail was
a black hole fringed by wildly flapping shreds of cloth.
Released from the overwhelming pressure on the sail, the boat snapped
straight up and forged ahead, the reefed main sail driving her hard. The
seas were suddenly flattened by a roaring hissing cascade of rain that
blinded them. It turned into hail. Pellets of ice raked the deck, ricocheted
and piled ankle deep.
They grew larger, like marbles, then golf balls. Jim saw a baseball size
chunk explode on the gunnel and another clang against the steering pedestal.
Then he was down, knocked off his feet, vaguely aware he was floundering
on hands and knees, stunned by a huge hail stone that had smashed into
his face. He clapped his hand over his nose and it came it came away blood
red. Spray washed over him and salt stung in the wound. Shocked and confused,
he tried to stand up just as a tremendous gust hit the boat full on her
side. It bellied the main sail and she tipped, tossing him toward the
water again. He reached for the life lines, but fell smoothly between
them--swish like a perfect basket--through the double wires and into the
sea.
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