“I think,” Tristan went on, “this actually solves a bunch of problems for us. One, we definitely put The Gauntlet into the course, maybe as a riskier short-cut. There’ll be a longer option out through some buoys, so it will introduce an interesting strategy choice. Everyone’s signing away liability, and they’ll be fully informed. Two, I think we just found our official theme song. Find the band and apologise for the clip usage, and offer them a licensing deal. Hell, see if they’re interesting in playing in the VIP tent. That’s win-win. And three, now we know our biggest drawcard.”
“What?” Erin said.
“You. I want you front and centre. You’re already racing, but I want you as the spokesperson, too. Interviews. Sponsorship negotiations. This is going to be great.”
Erin swallowed, as the high from having done something well was crushed under more responsibility. But she hardly had time to dwell; the meeting pushed on another two hours, ironing out the details, assigning tasks. When they broke for late-morning coffee, Tristan pulled Erin outside and into the shade of a large pandanus.
“Erin, that video was a stroke of genius. Just next time – run these things past me, okay?”
“I thought you liked it.”
“Oh I did, but you’ll give Troy heart failure. He’s got contacts I can’t afford to lose.”
Erin made a face. “He’s doing heart failure to himself, the number of Danishes he eats.”
Tristan grinned and tapped a finger before he said, “Speaking of problems, what do you know about this new doctor?”
He asked the question so casually Erin was taken completely off-guard. What shot into her mind was that night with Alex, up on the old resort roof, making out under the stars. It was a little over a week ago, but between Alex’s hospital work, and Erin’s new job, they’d not seen each other since. After that amount of time, it seemed uncertain if the moment between them had meant anything. And Erin knew that all of this showed on her face before she could remember to be cautious around Tristan.
She shrugged. “He’s okay I guess.”
“People have seen him on your boat,” Tristan said.
“People are nosy.”
“Just watch yourself. This guy has a record, Erin. Not a nice one.”
Erin frowned, thinking of the rumours Gus had told her about Alex. She wanted to see him again, but she knew this was absolutely not something she should share with Tristan. She glanced towards the meeting room, suddenly eager to get back to fighting it out with Troy and Benny. “Come on, are we planning a race or what?”
Tristan caught her arm. “Seriously, Erin.”
Erin shook him off, a little too roughly. “Geez, come on Tristan,” she said, trying to soften the blow, her heart pounding. “People probably still talk about us, you know.”
Tristan smiled. “Well, that I don’t mind a bit. But let’s be serious for a minute. About the spokesperson role. I have a potential sponsor I want you to meet. Work your magic on.”
“I’m not good in the boardrooms, Tristan. As you can see.”
“Who said anything about boardrooms? I’m talking about a private dinner, on the water. Just us and the sponsor. No pressure.”
“Who is it?”
Tristan shook his head, gently teasing. “I’ll tell you after the pilot race. If he’s still interested.”
“No pressure,” Erin muttered.
Chapter 11
The two weeks to the pilot race sped past, Erin feeling the whole time that she barely had time to breathe. On race morning, Great Haven was surrounded with boats. The early arrivals had moored in the main bay, and others had filled the sheltered western side of the island. The A-listers who had camped in the marina on the mainland sailed in all morning for the midday start.
Erin had planned to spend the morning in final preparations on Fair Winds, but she found herself waylaid from dawn, occupied with the lead-in events. First were the sailboards, like windblown butterflies as they streaked out in a short course race just out of the main bay; then came the small catamaran class. Both events had been designed to entertain the growing crowd on the beach, who flocked around a fleet of mobile food trucks. Sandy had been vocal in her displeasure, but had to concede Tristan’s point: the crowds were far too large for the bakery and cafe to handle alone.
The cable TV crew had set up in the old ocean-view bar in the resort, the producer waxing lyrical to Erin how the degraded industrial space created such an atmosphere to the proceedings. The pre-race interview with the commentators delayed Erin another twenty minutes. As she finally put the last check through her list, it was past ten-thirty, cutting it fine to make it back to the yacht and out ready for the start.
“Wait, Erin,” Tristan called as she tried to exit the war room, which was what Tristan had dubbed the main organising office for the day. “Here – earpiece and transmitter. We’ll have up-to-the-minute tide and wind forecasting for you throughout.”
Erin didn’t think she’d need it, but took it anyway, desperate to get moving. Out of breath by the time she reached the jetty, she found a stony-faced Travers waiting with the tender, all yachts having been prohibited from tying up for the week.
“You are in trouble,” he said as she piled into the dingy.
“Let’s just get out there.”
But Skye said nothing about her being late. Maybe it was the joy of seeing Haven once again so alive with boats. As they motored out towards the rest of the fleet, the sky was a blinding blue, the air full of conversation, and the ocean rippling with coloured sails. Travers was quickly talent spotting, awed as Wild Oats muscled past, clunking through a turn.
“Why does it sound like a steamship?” he asked.
“Everything’s motorised,” Erin explained. “Winches, the whole lot.”
“So I’m clearly on the wrong boat.”
The earpiece cracked. “Erin, how’s it looking?”
“You’re not going to be in my head the whole time are you? I’m taking it off if you are.”
Tristan laughed. “Just doing a test. Your on-board camera feed is perfect, and we’ve got drone eyes in the sky for the whole race too. We’ll only come on the mike if there’s something we think you need.”
“Who are you talking to?” Skye asked.
“Tristan in mission control,” Erin muttered, pointing to her ear. “Now let’s get the sails up.”
The start was a jostle, every yacht trying to be in the perfect position as they timed the last minute from the warning gun. Erin’s heart was pumping for a different reason entirely. She’d been on shore far too long. While the training runs had been good, nothing compared to being in the thick of the other hulls, the sails snapping tight in the breeze, the course ahead. She felt like the horses she saw on television, lining up for a big race, wound high with energy and ready to run. She caught Skye’s eye in the last seconds, and her sister actually gave her a grin. They were ten metres from the line; Travers threw her a worried glance lest they cross before the gun. Then the klaxon rang out, and they were flying.
The column of yachts sped away south. Even over the rush of wind and water, Erin could hear the cheers from the beach. The wind was perfect across the beam, the biggest yachts in a class above easily pulling away.
Erin didn’t care. They were in a handicap class, and doing well. The Fair Winds wasn’t the fastest yacht, but she could hold her own, and they had an advantage through The Gauntlet, which would slow many of the boats down.
“Looking good, Erin. You might want to come out to the west a bit more, avoid falling in the sail shadows.”
“We’re okay here,” Erin snapped back. “We’ll be around the first marker soon, and better placed for the next turn.”
A pause. “Okay.”
By the time they’d turned tight into the wind around the first mark, then back south around the next, Erin thought they’d gained some ground. She hugged close to a small islet, looking for the next mark that would turn them east for the run towards The Gauntl
et.
“Erin, you’re a bit close to the island.”
“The tide’s running west now,” she answered. “Everyone further out is fighting it.”
“But there’s more wind pressure—”
Erin pulled the earpiece out and passed it to Skye. “Here, you take it. Let me know if they say anything interesting.”
As she suspected, The Gauntlet knocked everyone off pace. A few boats screamed in too confident and found they had to drop sails to make the turns, and others had to hang back to avoid a pile-up. Almost no one had elected for the safer, long run out to the buoys, but probably a few wished they had. Erin saw more than one circling around to come at the entry again, having muffed it the first time. She saw a gap and took it, roaring into the mouth of The Gauntlet, maintaining the pace that Travers and Skye had practiced over and over in their training runs. They whipped back and forth through the tacking turns, outpacing other boats that were taking more care. And then, they were out the other end and tacking a huge turn around the next mark, Skye and Travers flawless in dropping the jib and hoisting the spinnaker. Their biggest sail was blue, like the sky itself, and they flew down-wind under its pull.
“Control says there’s only one handicap boat in front now,” Skye said.
Erin could see them, their bright red spinnaker covered in corporate logos impossible to miss. Only a short dog-leg around two marks was left before the turn for the big run back into the bay. She turned her face into the breeze, scanned the water and clouds ahead. The dog-leg took them around the end of one of the small islets, the last turn right off its point. Erin called Travers and Skye in.
“Change of plan. We’re dropping the kite at the next turn, and we won’t put it back up for the short down-wind leg.”
“Control room says we can’t possibly win that way,” Skye relayed. “We don’t have the speed without the spinnaker.”
The mark was coming up fast.
“That boat ahead will lose time changing their sails twice, and we won’t,” Erin argued. “Plus, around that last mark, the pressure’s going to come roaring around the island point. We’ll be catching that before they’ve even got their jib up again.”
Skye made a face, and held out the earpiece. “He wants to talk to you.”
Erin had had enough. She grabbed the earpiece. “Stop racing for me,” she yelled at it, and chucked it in the ocean.
Travers laughed, but then they were on the mark, and everyone had to focus. Erin steered them tight and smooth, the spinnaker collapsing down and the jib unfurling again as though Skye and Travers had been working together for a year. By the next mark, they’d maintained position, and as the boat ahead re-hoisted their spinnaker at the next turn, Erin gained, so that by the final turn, the Fair Winds’ nose was right on their stern. This was where it would all happen. Erin couldn’t hope to hold them in a straight line race. The whole margin would be decided in the next turn.
As they gybed around, she cut them tight on the inside, inches to spare between the two hulls. The roaring wind off the tip of the island caught Fair Winds’ sails. The competitor’s boat was not only in the middle of changing sails, they fell directly in the Fair Winds’ wind shadow.
Erin watched the other boat’s sails droop, momentarily dead in the water. They’d never recover their loss of speed. Instead, it was the Fair Winds flying towards home and the finish line. The A-listers had come in already, several of them lining the way like an honour guard. Erin was screaming encouragement, one hand firm on the wheel, the other holding the main sheet as Skye and Travers maintained the foresail trim.
The boat behind was gaining, their momentary lull over, their streamlined form making up the error. As the finish line zoomed into view, their bow was level with the Fair Winds’ stern. But it was too late. Erin crossed the line half a length ahead, the guns sounding with a huge cheer from the crowd.
Erin soared on the high of that moment, at one with the world around her. The ocean had never smelled so clean, the temperature had never been so perfect. She was overcome with a calm, easing the Fair Winds around to head into shore, even while Skye and Travers were fist-pumping and waving. Erin could see the size of the monitors that were currently showing her hands on the wheel. It all seemed so surreal. Slowly, she let the power out of the mainsail and turned for a lap along the beach.
Before she knew what she was doing, she was looking for her father in the crowd, and then the pain of remembering he was gone cut her down. She swiped away the tears, the moment tarnished. She sucked some breaths, avoiding Skye who would notice something was wrong. And by the time they were under motor again and heading back to moor, she’d recovered enough to gather her team and thank them. It was then she noticed the blood running down Travers’ neck.
“What happened to you?” she asked, as Skye turned white and rushed to find the first-aid box.
“Oh, nothing,” he said, examining his red fingers in amazement. “Just copped a hit from the spinnaker pole in the last turn. What a rush. I didn’t even realise.”
Alex had watched the whole race from the shore, on one of the large screens positioned not far from the community ambulance station.
Before the race, he’d been professionally occupied, ensuring the ambulances had let air out of their tyres, to cope with the sandy road down to the clinic, and then making some noise in the office to get the marshals to keep a path clear of umbrellas in case they had to use it. After that had come a case of heat stress and a few minor injuries.
None of it compared to watching Erin race. They’d allocated more than a fair share of the screen coverage to footage from on-board cameras, in between zoom-outs over the course with all the boats marked with their relative positions and classes. Alex had been impatient, even when several boats came to grief in The Gauntlet, for them to return to Erin’s boat. Then, they did, through those final magical turns, where she’d pulled away and won.
Alex had known she must be good, but the command of her on the boat, the assurance and confidence, the skill ... he felt magnetised, and he’d cheered louder than anyone when she’d crossed first for her division. He wanted nothing more than to find her.
Which of course was when he’d seen one of the volunteers running towards him.
“Doc, we’ve got someone needs you,” she panted. “Took a bad fall out on course. They’re bringing him up now.”
“Head injury?” Alex asked.
“Not sure.”
“Bleeding?”
“Yeah.”
“Straight to the clinic then.”
They brought him in on a stretcher, the man softly moaning, still wearing his crew’s racing colours. His leg was at an angle Alex instantly knew was bad news.
Alex pushed all but the crewman’s captain and the paramedics – who were rapidly quoting vitals – out the door. The crewman wasn’t making much sense.
“Talk to me about what happened,” Alex said, as he motioned to the paramedic to start a drip line. The crewman’s breathing was rapid, but as yet uncompromised.
“We were turning at the mark and got broadsided with a big wave, just a freak one. Spencer fell. He was wearing a tether, but he slid down the deck, and hit the winch pretty hard. We all heard the crack.”
Alex grabbed the scissors and slit Spencer’s fitted racing skins from ankle to waist. What he found was a deep purple bruise, running from the man’s hip right over his thigh.
“He hit his head at any point? Or pass out?”
“No, he was screaming the whole way back.”
Alex grabbed a morphine vial and drew the drug. “Sandy!” he called.
“She’s still down at the race,” said the captain.
“Well, then—” And that was when Alex noticed Anna Jacobs standing in the doorway, one hand on the jamb, as if she’d tried to leave many times and yet hadn’t been able to move her feet. Alex didn’t really know Anna; they’d only met at the dance. But patients talked about her. Mostly about how she’d never be able to re
st, not knowing what had happened to her husband. Or how dreadfully unlucky she’d been – no, they’d all been – to lose Dr Jacobs. That they could understand how she’d buried herself in her book projects, nursing her broken heart. But among all of that, people also said that she’d run his medical practice. Right now, Alex needed the help.
He beckoned her over as he checked the morphine and pushed it into the drip. She came, haltingly, standing off to the side, an older version of Skye.
“Anna, you know how to call an evac?”
“Yes.” She recited the number as if it was in an internal speed dial.
“Do that, please? Tell them we’ve got a mid-twenties man with likely pelvic and femur fractures for priority one. Might be spinal involvement, too.”
Anna moved with surprising speed. If Alex had any doubt as to her capability, it was wiped out as he heard the call go through out in reception. Anna then stood in the door of the room with the phone to her ear, waiting in case he had other information to add.
Alex worked as fast as possible to splint Spencer’s leg for transport. He made sure they had two drip lines, that oxygen saturation was high. Blood pressure was holding.
“What’s happening?” asked the captain, as the paramedics disappeared to ensure the road to the airstrip was clear.
“Spencer needs to fly to the mainland,” Alex explained. “We’re organising it now. You can probably go along if you want. Is there any family we can call?”
Half an hour later, Alex had just returned from passing Spencer over to the flying doctor when he heard the clinic door chimes again. Thinking it must be Anna coming back, he stopped short when he found Erin in the waiting area, looking windblown but utterly wonderful. She had Travers’ shirtsleeve twisted into a knot, the big man pressing a bloodstained towel to his head.
“Caught him trying to sneak home,” Erin said. “He took a hit from the spinnaker pole. I think it needs stitches.”
On a Starlit Ocean Page 11
