Coincidence - Alan May [31]
Classes would not start for a couple of days. First the Floaties must get accustomed to the shipboard routine. Although they had practiced much of it during their week of training, it was more strenuous now that they were actually afloat.
After colors, Anika sent everyone to clean their cabins, including the heads, as was standard morning routine. Then, around midmorning, all hands were called to set the sails. The captain had told Mac which sails were to be raised, and it was Mac’s responsibility to get the crew to raise them. To an outsider, this procedure would have looked like organized chaos. The first sail to go up was the main and it took no fewer than twenty Floaties, working together in five separate groups, to get the task done. Next came the mizzen, then the flying jib, and, finally, the outer jib. The whole process took over an hour. At last the motor was shut off and they were under sail.
Pierre and Melissa were both taken aback by how different it felt. Even though the generator continued to purr, making it sound as if the motor was still running, the sensation onboard was something completely new. The wind was on the beam, making the ship heel to starboard and rock slightly as each wave hit the boat. They hadn’t noticed this rocking motion when the ship was under power only.
Just before noon Dave Cameron yelled, “Dolphins at the bow!”
Running forward, Melissa saw seven or eight dolphins frolicking in the bow wave. She had never seen so many dolphins at once, and never at such close range. They swam at the same speed as the ship, then began jumping out of the water. It was almost as though they were playing tag with the ship, nudging it, then darting away, daring it to catch up.
The rest of the day was devoted to chores: the many tasks that needed to be done to keep the ship running smoothly, and all of which the Floaties would soon have to sandwich between their classes and studying. In addition to the sailing skills they’d be learning, there was a staggering amount of maintenance to be done every day: scrubbing, sanding, “rust-busting,” painting. Few of them had ever given a thought to what was required to keep a vessel the size of the Inspiration shipshape. In fact, the Floaties were getting a whole new appreciation of many figures of speech they had heard all their lives without truly understanding. Especially “learning the ropes.”
“Do you realize how many lines they expect us to memorize?” Nancy asked Melissa as they took a short break in the afternoon. They were sitting on the port side on a little bench just outside the mess hall, right next to a pin rail.
“One hundred and thirty-four,” Nancy announced, before Melissa could answer. “I’ve counted them. Look at the pins on the rail right there. There are twenty-six on that pin rail alone! Buntlines, leech lines, clew lines, halyards, and jiggers. How are we ever expected to remember them all?”
“We’ve only been at it for a few days. In another couple of weeks we’ll probably have them all down pat,” Melissa replied.
She had a few doubts of her own, but goodness knows Mac was doing his best to drill the names into their heads as quickly as possible.
“I’m still freaked about climbing the rigging,” Nancy was saying. “I don’t think I’m ever going to make it all the way up to the royal.”
“I don’t know which is worse,” Melissa said. “Looking up or looking down!”
She had made it to the top of the mast, the royal, but not without considerable wooziness. It was only her steely determination not to allow mere terror to stand in her way that had kept her going.
“It’s funny,” she said. “When you’re on deck, the ship looks huge, but up there, looking down at it, it’s like the size of a sandbox. And then, when the