Nathalie Gray - Full Steam Ahead

Clouds massed like god-fists low over the horizon, which only the peaks and dips of the restless ocean broke. Brown and gray slashed the purple sky. The temperature had dropped. High noon felt more like dusk. The sun had risen and then disappeared an hour later, going back to bed with the petulance of a moody teen, and Laurel had not seen it since. According to the met reports, she would not for several hours. Days, even.

She rubbed her hair back into her baseball cap and then screwed it on low. She was only a couple hours ahead of the other sailboats and couldnt afford to lose a precious minute or make a single less-than-optimum correction. The lone female among the twenty racers, she had more to prove than any of them. Plus, she had to prove something to herself. Shed sacrificed a lot for this, had fought and trained and worked hard for more than three years. But she was here now!

A sense of exhilaration took her. She grinned despite the spray hitting her in the face, despite her lips cracking from weeks of wind and sun exposure. Or perhaps because of it. An adrenaline junkie at heart, she did not mind the conditions, quite the contrary.

Shed always been this way, the reckless stuntwoman diving down the basement stairs with her big brothers too-large hockey equipment taped on tight. Or a pilot at the command of her retrofitted pedal bike, complete with wings made of old umbrella parts. The bump on the bridge of her broken nose gave her a bragging right she still used at family gatherings.

This race was just a normal continuation of the life shed led so far. The Vende Globe, the most grueling singlehanded yacht race around the world, had never been annulled for bad weather, even if the sixty-foot open sailboats took water in by the gallons. Below the whistling of the wind, the bilge pumps rumble whirred beneath the deck. It had held so far. She closed her eyes to savor the soundsthe various metallic clings and clanks as rings and cleats struck the aluminum mast. A soothing rhythm.

A slap of wind strained the mainsail. Laurel snapped out of her luxurious five minute break and leaned on the satellite dome, looking up. Dizzying, the tip of the mast swerved left and right against the darkening sky, forward and back with each wave while telltales and reef lines angrily flapped in the wind. The white and red hullher main sponsors colorsglistened with the waves increasing intensity and force.

Benson! crackled the radio.

One gloved hand on the tiller, she stretched to reach the small handheld VHF radio strapped inside the instruments niche.

Another couple inches to her five-foot-nothing frame would be nice sometimes. She dislodged the handheld from its Velcro straps and brought it up to her mouth.

Benson here, she snarled with her lips against the radio. A wave forced her to make an adjustment, which slowed her down.

She felt the boat sink deeper into the water, the mainsail sagging, beginning to luff. Every second counted. Shit.

If yoo vaunt to go beck home, the man said. Swiss, maybe?

Austrian? No one voot say anyssing.

You have a question or not?

She heard the mocking laughter. Moron kept his finger on the transmitter so she could hear his laugh. Only one? Oo is in your kutchen vhile yoo are out playing vith saw boys?

Funny how anger dissipated the wet cold sneaking into her many layers of clothing. She reached for the whistle tied to her PFD, kept her thumb on the transmit button and blew a nice and loud tune into the morons ear.

Asshole, she snarled after she spit out the whistle.

Sexist jerks.

She checked her watch. Damn. Her last correction would cost her a couple hours. She felt winds shifting again. Her uncanny skill had earned her the nickname la sorcire from the favorable French crews. She was no witch. Just a regular racer who had a knack for wind shifts. She felt the minute changes on her face and in the way the mainsail strained from the bottom part up instead of the other way around. Laurel shifted on the narrow, molded fiberglass seatmore like a ledgeto face starboard instead of port.

As if shed tuned it with a remote, the wind altered slightly by a few degrees. But she was waiting and she harvested each iota of energy by winching hard on the line and anchoring it into the clam cleat. The mainsail strained against its lines and moorings. With a sound like a giant water hose, the force of the wind pushed against the sails. The boat leaned portside. Laurel let out a whoop of thrill when the angle forced her to her feet. Above, the sky seemed to become a tableau from a mad painter. Slashes of gray and brown against purple. Temperatures dropped further. She shivered despite the nylon jacket, polar fleece sweater and Nomex undergarments.

Because of her French Canadian fathers work as merchant mariner, shed lived in Montreal for several years yet had never, ever been so cold. To her shock, she noticed ice forming on the glistening bow. What the hell was going on? Ice meant added weight to her boat, which could cost her more than just hours.

Benson, the radio sputtered.

Oh, what now, you annoying prick! She didnt get up. Screw them. Screw their sexist jokes.

Bensonweather reports. The radio spattered and fizzed, lost the channel, and then picked it up again. She recognized her shore crew managers voice. He sounded worried. Himself a seasoned seafarer and father of five girls, nothing fazed Jacques Durand. Bensonsat phone.

Shed stuffed the satellite phone in the cabin earlier because shed been in a hurry. She couldnt put the autopilot on right now, not with the kind of weather presently assaulting her boat. Plus, she was having a riot of a time. This was true freedom. Alone on the open sea. Standing, she strained against the wind, mouth stretched in a wide grin, eyes set on the prize. Always on the prize.

She could do this. Shed done this before, if never in this particular race. The boat responded by cutting the waves like a knife would meringue. The raging sea tried its best to suck her boat into the water. The mast quivered and bowed. The sails shivered. More ice accumulated on the bits and pieces of aluminum moorings, on a section of exposed lines she hadnt touched in a while, on the bow.

It even crystallized the water dripping off her cap.

Benson! the radio clamored.

Argh, goddammit, all right! She reached for the radio. Just as her fingers touched it, a blue arc of electricity linked her to the radio, which fizzed and went silent. She brought it up, mashed the button. Benson here!

Nothing. Not even the deep-fryer sound. Laurel gave it a good shake, her usual way of fixing things. Still dead.

Ahead, waves reached proportions shed never encountered.

The radio slipped from her hand.

Holy cow.

The size of that thing.

Ragged scuds and vortices lined one of the biggest shelf clouds shed ever seen. The large wedge-shaped cloud, low over the horizon, looked ominous enough for Laurel to zip her jacket all the way up. A sure sign of trouble. She was headed straight for a massive storm. No wonder Jacques had sounded worried. Her shore crew must have been going nuts trying to contact her. And the sat phone nice and warm in the cabin.

The Swiss teams sexist jokes had suddenly become the least of her worries. She had work to do and needed all her neurons. Shed call the team as soon as possible. For now, she was about to enter the ring with the deadliest of all fightersthe sea.

Here we go!

She released the line from the cleat, let it out a bit as she nudged the tiller, just a tad, enough to angle her boat at the massive series of waves coming dead center. The first, she crested diagonally, rode it up like a Russian Mountain and could almost hear the clack-clack-clack of the initial lift hill. High. Higher still. The boat crested the giant wave. A split second of quasi-zero g.