The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4) Gregg Dunnett (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📖

a few seconds, because they’re all surprised. Actually, I’m probably the most surprised. I think I was just getting into it more than I realized.

“It’s windier out to sea.” David replies, part to me, but then more to his dad. “We have to follow them.”

I’d keep quiet, I really would if it wasn’t so obvious that the wind has changed.

“But look at the wind inshore. The angle’s better.”

“You sure?” Claude asks. And suddenly I’m not. Not quite as sure. Because it’s one thing to think all this in my head, and another to have actually said it out loud, now we’re going to make a decision on it.

“The birds are flying differently to before.”

Both David and Claude look, but then look back at me, frowning, like they don’t see it.

“We’re behind anyway. We’re only going to chase them home if we tack. So let’s stick it out.” Claude says, so that’s what we do. And now I’m super tense as we keep sailing left, while the black yacht moves further and further away from us towards the other side of the course. But soon we hit the wind shift, and we’re able to tighten up our angle, and sail much tighter – more directly – towards the windward marker buoy. Suddenly we’re sailing a shorter course than they are. All that’s happened is the wind is bending around nearer to the shore, it did the same thing when we were sailing around Lornea. The wind is still slightly lighter inshore, but not by much, and we’re still averaging eight knots on the log. We have to tack eventually, to sail back towards the marker buoy, and timing it right is crucial. But when we do, and we’re back up to speed, we can all see we’ve reversed the position against the Abigale. Now we’re comfortably ahead, it’s ten boat lengths back. We go around the buoy ahead, and give a cheer as we pass them when we’re on the way back downwind.

It’s tense after that, but we stay ahead, and on the second, shorter beat back upwind, we make the same call, going to the left. This time the black yacht follows us, but it’s too far back to catch us, and we finish the race fourth. This time Claude gives David the wheel and goes and talks on the radio himself, though I can’t hear what he says. I don’t care though, I have Lily beside me now, handing me more soup and sandwiches. She’s grinning with delight, her hair tucked into a red woolly hat that matches the glow on her cheeks.

There’s a longer gap between the second and the final race, and we eat more sandwiches wrapped in foil. There’s a bit of a chance to relax now, and I start to wonder if I might be able to find some time to speak with Lily’s dad. It occurred to me before that actually getting to meet him like this, I might be able to tell him about the issue of the sea-dragons – not maybe my campaign to stop his company expanding there, I thought I’d keep quiet about how it’s me behind that – but maybe I could explain to him the reasons behind the campaign, the need to protect the seagrass areas. Before I met him I kind of assumed he wouldn’t be the sort of person who might listen to this, but now I get the idea the opposite might be true. He actually seems a lot more decent and normal than I expected. But still, there hasn’t been a spare moment so far. And before I can find a way to broach the subject now, we’re in the start sequence for the third race.

It seems more tense this time, if that’s even possible. I guess because it’s the last race of the day. Actually, the last race of the whole season. There’s more chatter on the radio, between lots of the boats, and more shouting, and the boats seem to be getting closer than before. A couple of times we have to tack away when other boats are aimed directly towards us. Boats on port tack have to give way to those on starboard, and it’s like being in a parking lot in the summer at the beach, when everyone wants to position their cars to get into not enough spaces. It’s chaos.

“One minute to go. Jacques’s gone left.” David calls out. Which means that the black yacht has stayed at the other end of the start line to where we aimed for in races one and two. I guess it means they’re going to go up the same side of the course as we did in the second race. Because they’re a bit faster than us, that means we’ll lose our advantage.

“What side Billy?” Claude asks. “You still think the wind is better inshore?”

I look at the surface of the water. At the birds, but now there aren’t any. They’ve flown away. Which is odd in itself. I hesitate.

“Need an answer. Go left or right?”

“Go left. Follow them left,” David says. “We’ve got to.”

I hesitate again, and I can see Claude is watching me. I nod. “Yeah.”

So we do. We hit the line a few seconds after the gun, and quite a few of the other boats have seen the shift now, so the fleet splits. Half go inshore, the black yacht and us among them, the other half still go out to sea. We race on for a bit, but it’s soon clear the black yacht isn’t in a good situation. It’s caught up too close to three other boats, which are all chopping up the water for each other, and disturbing the wind. We’re luckier, out on our own, and this means the difference in our boat speed is evened out. We even creep ahead. So then the black yacht tacks early, abandoning this side of the course, and going for the other. But we stick to what’s working,