The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4) by Gregg Dunnett (best books for 7th graders .txt) 📕

moves to the companionway, where the radio is. “Permission to tell Jacques he’s an arrogant asshole?”

“Permission denied.” Claude replies, but he looks up at the giant sails, and turns the wheel so we’re sailing just a touch closer to the wind.

Ten minutes later and we’ve slipped further back. I’ve been watching the speedometer intently, we’re averaging 8.5 knots. Suddenly I’m surprised when Claude talks to me.

“Don’t worry Billy. We’ll get him on the downwind leg.” I turn to see him smiling, in a kind of rueful way.

“I can see you know a bit about boats?”

“A little.”

He nods. “You done any racing before?”

I shake my head. “But I did do some research, after Lily asked me to come.”

He looks surprised at this. “Research?”

“Yeah. Just about the racing part of things. So I knew the basics.”

He chuckles. “Oh yeah. So what’d you learn?”

“Um.” I’m not sure I can remember all the terminology, so I’m reluctant to try and repeat it all now.

“Well, obviously in a race it’s mostly about who can get up the beat, or the windward leg first.” I decide I’m not going to tell him my mountain analogy.

“Because you can’t sail directly into the wind, and you have to zigzag towards it, the boats are actually sailing much further on this leg. But on top of that, the wind is never constant both in terms of direction and strength. So some parts of a racecourse will be windier, which makes you go faster, and some parts will be lighter, which makes you go slower. And on top of that, in some parts the wind will be blowing from slightly different directions, some of which let you sail more directly to the mark, and some of which force you to sail further away from it. So it’s a bit like finding your way through a giant maze, where you have to read all this invisible wind to find the fastest route through. Plus, there’s currents too.”

I feel both Claude and David Bellafonte turn to stare at me. “That’s certainly the theory.”

We don’t tack much though, not now we’re actually racing. That’s because the boat is so big and heavy, it takes a long time to get back up to speed when we do it, and because the right hand side of the course is obviously windier, so all the boats have gone this way. But as we cut our way towards the first marker buoy, the black yacht keeps easing ahead, and it makes the turn a full minute before we do. Then by the time we go around the buoy, and ease our sails to run back downwind, it looks miles away. We follow it downwind, putting up a huge spinnaker sail that pulls us back down to the start much more quickly than it took to get up here, and then there’s a few moments of panic while we have to pack it away again. And then we start again, on the much shorter second upwind leg. We’re even further behind now, and the mood on the boat sinks.

“What do you reckon David? Take a chance on the other side?” Claude says, when we’re steady sailing back upwind again. I can sort of follow the tactics now. The black yacht has gone up the same side of the course as we did the first windward leg, out away from the land where it’s windier, but if we just follow them, then the same thing is going to happen as on the first lap. We’ll both be in the same wind, they’re a tiny bit faster than us, so they’ll stay ahead.

“We’ve got no choice,” David replies. “We’ll just have to hope they mess up the mark rounding.”

But they don’t. They go around a full five minutes before we do, and just after we round the upwind mark they cross the finishing line. Seconds later we hear the radio crackle again.

“That’s one out of three Claude. You wanna give up already?”

We finish the race thirteenth out of the twenty five boats, which apparently isn’t bad – according to Lily – but obviously no one’s very happy, because the boat we wanted to beat was seven places ahead of us. We don’t go ashore or anything though, there’s another race straight after this one, and we have to sail about a bit while we wait for the final boats to finish, then there’ll be another start sequence. In the meantime, Lily’s mom brings out mugs of hot soup and sandwiches wrapped in tin foil that she had warming in the oven. They’re really nice, but I somehow expected rich people to eat better than this.

There’s less time than I imagine before we’re starting again. And quickly the pressure builds up again. The start is incredibly important, you have to cross the line just as the gun goes, and moving at full speed – if you don’t, it’s like giving other boats a head start. But also, one end of the start line is a little bit more upwind than the other, so all the boats want to start at that end, at the same time. So there’s lots of shouting and yelling, and boats changing direction. When the gun finally goes we’re not quite so well placed as before, and the black yacht is already a few boat-lengths ahead. Just as before, it tacks off, to sail up the right hand side of the course, further out to sea where the wind is stronger. But this time there’s something different.

“We need to tack,” David says. “We need to follow them.”

But this time Claude hesitates, and I can see why, it’s obvious. The wind’s shifted. You can see it on the water, and in the way the birds are flying, they’re hanging in the air, just coasting on the up-currents flowing up the cliffs. The angle they’re making against the shore has changed.

“OK,” Claude says. “Prepare to tack.”

“No!” I call out. “The wind’s changed. Stay on this tack.”

No one talks for