Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/208

 main-boom well eased off, the jib-topsail doing gigantic work, and the other sails contributing their share toward impelling the fairylike fabric onward to the next goal, six nautical miles away. Not a quiver or a wrinkle in all the vast expanse of muslin extended to the breeze. The yacht's sharp cutwater cleaves the blue sea, making little or no disturbance, but the fleecy foam travels aft with the speed of a mill-race and leaves a glittering wake astern. All the crew have come abaft the mast, and are up to windward as far as they can get. The yacht heels over in the puffs at times until the lee rail is under, and the water occasionally threatens to bubble up to the skylights, but never gets there. It is indeed glorious racing. Nobody has the slightest idea of shortening canvas. What she can't carry she must drag.

The skipper keeps his eyes on the sails and on the compass. He never dreams of looking astern to see how his friend Captain Spike, of the Ghost, is coming along. No yacht-racing skipper ever does look astern while he is steering. It would be a breach of an old tradition unpardonable in a professional. Our owner, however, watches our opponent quite carefully, and confides to me in a whisper that he fears she will overhaul us and pass us to windward before we reach the mark at the end of the first leg. "It is in the beat back from the second mark that we shall have him at our mercy. We are con