Squinting forward through the holed and streaming Plexiglas windows of the wheelhouse, Neil could barely see the jib in the gathering dusk. Vagabond plunged, rocked, and shuddered dead into the wind, both sails snapping as they luffed. The jib, still held close-hauled for the starboard tack, was now beginning to be backwinded, pushing the bow further around onto the desired new tack. Vagabond swung around to starboard with increasing momentum; Katya released the jib the instant Neil gave the command, and Frank winched it in on the other side.
With two more tacks they were out of the harbor and heading east a half-mile from the south coast of St. Thomas.
The waves outside the harbor were immense; huge, gray, ugly, spume-covered swells barreling in at their starboard side, sending them sliding down into the trough, only to be hit broadside by the next crest with a sickening crash. Philip lay moaning now on the deck of the wheelhouse, where he had rolled off when the first angry swell had smacked them into a forty-five degree tilt. Frank had vomited onto the control panel shelf; Macklin had staggered below, useless with nausea. With Sheila tending to her husband, only Neil, Frank, Tony, and Katya remained in the central cockpit.
It was dark. During their last tack night had fallen with the swiftness of the tropics, and Neil had only his compass to steer by. The sky was totally overcast. There were no navigational aids along the south coast, only rocks. A breaking wave rolled into Vagabond with a shattering crash, which sounded as if a hand grenade had exploded against her right side.
“She can’t take this,” Frank said to Neil from beside him. Neil stared back at him uncomprehendingly.
“Vagabond can’t take this beating!” Frank shouted.
Maybe she couldn’t, but what the hell choice did they have? Neil thought. To run before the seas meant running onto the rocks of St. Thomas. Then he thought of the dagger board.
“Bring the dagger board halfway up!” Neil shouted to Tony. “We’ll let her slide some,” he explained to Frank, who nodded. Tony snapped on a safety harness and left to crawl forward. Even in the darkness Neil could get some sense of each wave as it approached, and he watched carefully as Tony snapped his safety line to a shroud and began crawling on his hands and knees across the main cabin roof to get to the dagger board. Once there, he began trying to winch the board up, but he needed someone to tail the line.
“Give him a hand!” Neil shouted instinctively, and Katya left to crawl up across the foredeck toward Tony. Even as she did Neil caught sight of an unusually large wave bearing down on them, breaking on top.
“Hold on!” he yelled and tried to turn Vagabond away to take the shock further aft, but it was too late. The wave struck Vagabond broadside with an explosive crack. A river of water two feet deep swirled across the main cabin top, burying Tony and Katya; water crashed into the starboard cockpit, and someone screamed. Vagabond was jolted to port by the blow, left wallowing, then sailed on.
Neil could feel water swirling around his feet, felt Frank’s arms around him, saw Tony, saved by his safety line, clutching a shroud on the port side, then beginning to crawl back toward the dagger board, like some persistent insect momentarily pushed away by an intruding finger. Sheila came up beside him, she too clutching at him for balance.
“Where’s Katya?” she shouted.
Neil searched the port side, hoping to see her clinging to a shroud, but she was gone. The next wave was big, but Vagabond appeared to slide away, letting it roll under her, and the wave only gave her a playful slap. As the trimaran surged forward Neil brought Vagabond up into the wind to stop her, but she turned sluggishly, unresponsive to the helm.
“No, Neil!” Frank shouted. “It’s no use!”
Even as Neil had swung the wheel around his mind told him there was nothing he could do. It was dark, Katya did not have light, nor was Vagabond equipped with a marker buoy with a light or a transmitter—there was no point in trying to find her. Even if she could keep swimming until daylight, there was still no chance they could beat their way back and locate her with the wind and seas still running like this. He mechanically turned Vagabond back on course.
Tony had staggered back to him at the helm.
“Katya went over!” he shouted. “She’s back there!” he added, pointing.
Shaken, Neil looked at him, nodded, and kept the helm steady.
“We can’t help her,” Frank said hoarsely from beside him.
“Aren’t you coming about?” Tony asked them, still gasping for breath. “She’s a good swimmer. We’ve got a searchlight.”
“We can’t do it, Tony,” Neil said, staring ahead of him, aware now of the ache in his throat.
“We’d probably kill everyone if we stopped now,” Frank added. “We’ve got to get past the point.”
“But we’ve got to try!” Tony said fiercely.
“She’s lost,” Frank said, putting one of his huge, bony hands on Tony’s shoulder. “Katya’s gone, and there isn’t a chance in a trillion we could find her. We’ve got to sail on.”
Tony had finally realized how close he himself had come to being lost as well; he looked briefly at the huge seas rolling at them and then back astern, toward where Katya had disappeared, and emitted a low, harsh groan. He turned back and lowered his head.
“It was my fault,” Neil said, shaking his head. “I should have gone forward myself. I should never have sent anyone without a safety harness.”
“A stanchion broke off,” Frank said, as if in defense of Neil.
“The sea will always break a stanchion if you give it a chance,” Neil replied. “Never, never, never let her go…” he muttered.
For another minute they all stood in the darkness, staring forward.
“She’s gone,” Tony said softly, flatly.
“I’m sorry, Tony,” said Neil, tears finally appearing on his cheeks. And then his grief was checked by sudden fear: Vagabond’s easier motion meant… that cracking noise when the wave hit…
“The dagger board’s gone,” Neil said harshly. Tony then informed them that he hadn’t made any progress when the wave hit—the twelve-foot dagger board must have broken off flush with the bottom of the boat.
“The ocean’s way of correcting a captain’s error,” Neil added bitterly.
“Will we still clear the tip of the island?” Sheila asked.
A minor, casual, life-or-death question. And if we cleared St. Thomas, there was still St. John and Flanagan Island to clear.
“I doubt it,” said Neil.
“Which anchor did you save?” Neil asked Frank.
“The CQR,” Frank answered.
It would never hold. It didn’t matter. Three anchors wouldn’t hold in this. And he couldn’t even see the coast of the islands he was trying to avoid, wouldn’t see it even at the moment Vagabond first began smashing herself to pieces.
“We may not clear the tip of the island,” he said, talking as much to himself as to the others, trying to clear his own mind. It was a no-win situation. If you tried sailing closer into the wind you’d lose speed and make three times as much leeway. If you continued on this reach, your course was so close to the tip of the island that the waves would still put you up on the rocks. And though they might clear the rest of St. Thomas, Dog Rocks stuck out even farther south. Dog Rocks: what a place to die.