In scarcely a minute they had left the harbor area and were beating to windward across the lake in a spanking breeze. Bud trimmed the sails carefully, nursing every bit of way he could muster as he gradually got the “feel” of the Sunspot. Soon the graceful ketch was spearing through the water at a near-racing clip.
“Nice going, Cap Barclay 1” Tom called aft from where he was seated with Phyl. Bud grinned and circled his thumb and forefinger in response.
“What a picture!” Phyl sighed happily, her dark hair streaming in the breeze.
“Blue water! White sails! And all this gorgeous sunshine!”
“Not to mention you!” Tom added with an admiring smile.
Turning serious, Phyl asked about the trouble Tom had had with his space kite’s gravitex.
The young inventor shrugged. “Couldn’t get enough pull out of it to do the job. It was like trying to fly a big box kite in a gale with a single THE SPANKING SUNSPOT 147
strand of sewing thread.” He added gloomily, “I’m afraid it’s just not safe enough for extensive space travel.”
Half playfully Phyl said, “Well, if your kite spaceship idea won’t work, why not make a sailing spaceship?”
“You mean, using cosmic ray power to sail it the way this ketch uses wind power?” Tom asked. As Phyl nodded, the young inventor grinned ruefully. “Bud and I went sailing all right in that space kite-downwind and going faster every second! But we just got farther away with no chance to come back. It was like sailing a ship without a keel.”
As he finished speaking, Tom lapsed into thoughtful silence. But a moment later he suddenly snapped his fingers and cried out, “A keel! That might be the answer!”
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