Crew

They were a team without fights, a group of fast friends, focused on the same goal - to make Poly Rocket go and have a great time doing it. They were having a great time right now, as the fifty-foot red hull slashed through the water, the fresh breeze now full on their faces. "Starboard!" cried Stick Ketchum on Sally Goose, demanding right of way as she bore down on Poly Rocket. "Hold your course!" PJ shouted at Ketchum, eyeing the distance the two boats had yet to travel and their respective speeds. "I think we have them," he said confidently. He planned to hold aggressively on port tack. If it worked, they would win. "Starboard!" Ketchum's voice sang out again over the wind and water. "You can't make it, PJ!" The two boats, a total of twenty tons were rushing toward each other at a closing speed of about seventeen knots. "Hold your course, Goose!" shouted PJ. Four boat lengths. "Oh, man, I love it this close!" Lenny said with excitement, a big smile on his face. He was not convinced Poly Rocket would make it in front of Sally Goose. "We are making trees," Jester said in a steady voice, watching the distant Angel Island shoreline behind Sally Goose, a stationary reference point matching her speed against Poly Rocket. He never liked close crossings, especially with million-dollar yachts, but unlike Lenny, he did think they could sneak in front of Sally Goose without fouling. PJ shifted from his seat on the edge of the cockpit and ducked behind the wheel so he could see the fast approaching Sally Goose under the mainsail boom. "We got'em!" he said. And then chaos split the day. The first bullet from Brett Lesco's rifle slammed into the horseshoe life preserver where PJ had been sitting a split second before. Jester heard the dull thud of it hitting. He turned his head toward the sound and saw the odd hole that suddenly appeared in the yellow horseshoe's canvas cover. "What the hell!" was barely out of his mouth when the next bullet ripped into his left shoulder, knocking him off his seat into the tilted cockpit behind PJ. His left arm went dead and, unable to cushion his fall, his head banged into a cockpit winch, knocking him unconscious. His limp body landed on the lifelines. PJ did not hear the first two bullets hit but heard Jester's cry. He turned to see his friend falling when the third and fourth bullets hit the deck. Something flew up and struck PJ. He was momentarily stunned and felt a burning sensation above his eye. The fifth bullet smashed into his left hand, knocking him away from the wheel. "What the...?" PJ started falling on the tilted deck, pain shooting up his arm. Reaching out instinctively for something to stop his fall, he grabbed a spoke with his right hand. His falling weight turned the wheel hard and instantly the big rudder spun the boat to the right. On board Sally Goose, Stick Ketchum had angrily accepted his failed gamble. Less current had won out over more wind. He aimed to pass behind Poly Rocket when he saw the red-hulled boat suddenly turn right at him. "What the hell is he doing?" he yelled and turned his wheel hard to the right. "Tack!" His crew had only started to react when the two fifty -foot hulls collided bows on. Poly Rocket's composite hull hit fiberglass and punched a hole in Sally Goose's left side just aft of her bow pulpit. Poly Rocket's momentum carried her bow up onto the blue boat, tilted over by the force of the wind, and the two hulls connected with a sickening screech. Ketchum's jib exploded in tatters and two lifeline stanchions along the rail were crushed before the red hull clipped the port side shrouds that held the blue hull’s mast in place. A single, loud twang was heard as a stainless-steel rod pulled out of the deck fitting. This was followed by a sharp crack aloft as the suddenly released pressure on the shroud caused the tightly strung aluminum mast to snap thirty feet from the top of its seventy five foot height. In slow motion it toppled like a tree, bringing the jib and mainsail down with it. Poly Rocket fell back into the water and was now lying abeam of the wind, her sails trimmed in tight. The twenty-knot breeze hit this wall of kevlar and pushed the boat slowly over on her side. The collision jolted Poly Rocket's crew on the rail and knocked the unconscious Jester off the lifelines and into the water. "Jester's overboard! Man overboard!" Crash shouted in horror, pointing at him from the rail. Kathryn, her knee and ribs shooting pain from contact with a bulkhead, started to move back across the sharply angled deck toward the vacant wheel, her hands grabbing for a handhold. She had to get control of the boat, which had begun to move again. PJ was dazed. He lay against the lifelines and looked up the tilted deck at the blue sky and the Golden Gate Bridge shining in the background. He thought he saw white wisps of fog tickling the upper towers of the bridge. At the moment of impact, he had watched Jester's still form fall into the water. This is not happening, he thought, as the alarms began to ring in his head. He fought off the confusion, and the pain that shot up his arm and reached his head. He grabbed the horseshoe life ring under him and rolled backward over the lifelines into the water after his friend. "Peter!" Kathryn yelled as he went over. She grabbed the steering wheel, struggling to keep her balance. Dutch, nursing his left arm, broken against the coffee grinder, stepped over the unconscious Lenny, released the mainsheet and let off the jib sheet, easing the pressure on the sails. The boat straightened up, coasting flat on the water with the sails flapping noisily The shock of the cold water shot right through PJ, but he stayed afloat and kept his eyes on Jester's face down body a few yards away. He swam to him and was able to turn him over on his back, slipping the horseshoe under his arms. Jester's eyes were closed, his body was limp. His foul weather jacket was ripped and there was blood coming from the hole over his shoulder. "He's been shot!" PJ blurted dumbfounded seeing the torn jacket hole. "We've been shot!" he said as the full realization struck him. He wiped his hand across his eyes revealing the blood that came from both his head wound and his hand. The saltwater added to the constant pain. His body pumped adrenalin, and he rhythmically kicked at the water, holding Jester on the surface. "Don't you die, damn it!" he shouted, trying to get a response from his lifeless friend. "Don't you die!" He could see Poly Rocket trying to approach them, but the swirling currents under the bridge had them going in different directions. A Coast Guard patrol boat shadowing the race came into view. Arms and hands reached over the side to fit a life sling over Jester and haul him on deck. "Watch his left arm!" PJ shouted from the water, his strength just about gone. A few moments later, he felt the deck under his own back and hazily looked up at two uniformed young men. "He's been shot. Somebody shot at us," he mumbled. His whole body began shaking. He was cold and felt weak from the loss of blood. He knew he was going into shock. Just before the darkness of unconsciousness overcame him, PJ saw those wispy fingers of fog over the bridge again. And then he heard the wind carrying the noise of confusion away to quiet. ~~~