"Well, this is it." Mitchell stuffed his kit into the cubbyhole. "The wind is out of the northwest. Our heading is northeast. The sea is following. Now if we don’t screw this up and the gods mind their own goddamn business we should sail fast. Very fast." Wind buried his voice.

They rigged their safety harnesses. Andy strapped Mitchell’s hand to the tiller then stripped the sail ties off the mainsail and climbed on deck. The dinghy was upside down on the cabin top, lashed to the grab rails. Andy hoisted the mainsail and weighed anchor and then hoisted the working jib aloft before retreating to the cockpit to trim the sails while Mitchell steered the sloop through the ledges out of the approaches.

"This is good," Andy said and climbed on deck again.

Mitchell turned the sloop into the wind. The sails luffed and the sloop rolled steeply, the masthead like a metronome scraping azure. Andy dropped the mainsail then sat on the dinghy to reef it, working quickly along the boom cleat. He hurried to the mast to winch the shortened sail aloft and the reef line burst from the cleat, cracking like a bullwhip and tearing Mitchell’s hat off as he ducked. Andy dove over the dinghy to tangle the line in his body, landing on his feet in the cockpit. He snatched Mitchell’s hat off the cockpit sole. "Are you all right?"

Mitchell stifled fury. The sloop rolled hard. He took a deep breath with a fierce stare at the fast sea. "Not today you blue bastard," he exhaled and shifted his eyes to Andy. "What’s wrong with the cleat?"

"It won’t hold or the line is too small. I don’t know."

"Figure it out later." Mitchell took his hat on his fist. "Raise the main and use the storm jib. Let’s go."

Andy hoisted the sails. Mitchell turned the sloop northeast and wind erupted in the sail fabric, a low-pitched scream in the rigging as the sloop surged into steep following swells that lifted the hull then rushed ahead of the bow. Sails shining like white glass, the knotmeter climbed past seven. Boat-speed felt like half of what it was. Andy used handholds to climb down into the cockpit.

"Look at this." Mitchell motioned with his eyes at the knotmeter. "Tell me where we’re going because we’re going there in a hell of a hurry."

Andy stared at the knotmeter. He trimmed the sails and swung below. "Steer to ninety-five degrees," he called up. "Look for a gong to starboard."

"I see it."

Andy climbed up with the binoculars. "That’s it," he said. "We’re really moving."

"What’s the course?"

Andy swung below again. "Can you see a bell off the port?"

"We just passed it."

"Come to forty degrees. It’s six miles to Cleveland Ledge."

Mitchell turned the sloop onto the new heading and the needle on the knotmeter swept past nine and shivered at ten. He smiled.

"What’s your speed?" Andy hollered.

"Ten-point-five knots." The knotmeter reached toward eleven. "We’re flying," Mitchell shouted.

Two hundred yards off the starboard beam a sailboat entered his peripheral vision. Andy climbed to the top of the ladder with the binoculars, he checked the sail trim then viewed the sea conditions with the glass. He found the sailboat off to starboard.