Speed Boat Quotes

If fate is a shape-shifter, then loves is too. It can be, anyway, in its most dangerous form. It´s your best day and then your worst. It´s your most hope and then you most despair. Lightness, darkness, it can swing between extremes at lightning speed- a boat upon the water on the most dangerous day, and then the clouds crawl in and the sky turns black and the sea rages and the boat is lost.

This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, "It's too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings." And then someone else on board says something like, "But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d'oeuvres." At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who'd been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can't get to him soon enough, or they don't even try, and the yacht's speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.

(A boat in lake.) I was afraid it would turn over at high speed. Dreams less and less interesting.

Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You would have to be some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption that the current would add or subtract 5 miles per hour to or from the speed of the boat.

It might seem to you that living in the woods on a riverbank would remove you from the modern world. But not if the river is navigable, as ours is. On pretty weekends in the summer, this riverbank is the very verge of the modern world. It is a seat in the front row, you might say. On those weekends, the river is disquieted from morning to night by people resting from their work. This resting involves traveling at great speed, first on the road and then on the river. The people are in an emergency to relax. They long for the peace and quiet of the great outdoors. Their eyes are hungry for the scenes of nature. They go very fast in their boats. They stir the river like a spoon in a cup of coffee. They play their radios loud enough to hear above the noise of their motors. They look neither left nor right. They don't slow down for - or maybe even see - an old man in a rowboat raising his lines... I watch and I wonder and I think. I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the illusion that they are free. The Economy does not take people's freedom by force, which would be against its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then persuades its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom.

He walked straight out of college into the waiting arms of the Navy. They gave him an intelligence test. The first question on the math part had to do with boats on a river: Port Smith is 100 miles upstream of Port Jones. The river flows at 5 miles per hour. The boat goes through water at 10 miles per hour. How long does it take to go from Port Smith to Port Jones? How long to come back? Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You would have to be some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption that the current would add or subtract 5 miles per hour to or from the speed of the boat. Clearly, 5 miles per hour was nothing more than the average speed. The current would be faster in the middle of the river and slower at the banks. More complicated variations could be expected at bends in the river. Basically it was a question of hydrodynamics, which could be tackled using certain well-known systems of differential equations. Lawrence dove into the problem, rapidly (or so he thought) covering both sides of ten sheets of paper with calculations. Along the way, he realized that one of his assumptions, in combination with the simplified Navier Stokes equations, had led him into an exploration of a particularly interesting family of partial differential equations. Before he knew it, he had proved a new theorem. If that didn't prove his intelligence, what would? Then the time bell rang and the papers were collected. Lawrence managed to hang onto his scratch paper. He took it back to his dorm, typed it up, and mailed it to one of the more approachable math professors at Princeton, who promptly arranged for it to be published in a Parisian mathematics journal. Lawrence received two free, freshly printed copies of the journal a few months later, in San Diego, California, during mail call on board a large ship called the U.S.S. Nevada. The ship had a band, and the Navy had given Lawrence the job of playing the glockenspiel in it, because their testing procedures had proven that he was not intelligent enough to do anything else.

It was the custom in those days for passengers leaving for America to bring balls of yarn on deck. Relatives on the pier held the loose ends. As the "Giulia" blew its horn and moved away from the dock, a few hundred strings of yarn stretched across the water. People shouted farewells, waved furiously, held up babies for last looks they wouldn't remember. Propellers churned; handkerchiefs fluttered, and, up on deck, the balls of yarn began to spin. Red, yellow, blue, green, they untangled toward the pier, slowly at first, one revolution every ten seconds, then faster and faster as the boat picked up speed. Passengers held the yarn as long as possible, maintaining the connection to faces disappearing onshore. But finally, one by one, the balls ran out. The strings of yarn flew free, rising on the breeze.

The sky slides into blue, the bluffs into bloom; the rapid Mississippi expands; runs sparkling and gurgling, all over in eddies; one magnified wake of a seventy-four. The sun comes out, a golden huzzar, from his tent, flashing his helm on the world. All things, warmed in the landscape, leap. Speeds the daedal boat as a dream.

Change can be accommodated by any system depending on its rate, Crake used to say. Touch your head to a wall, nothing happens, but if the same head hits the wall at ninety miles an hour, it's red paint. We're in a speed tunnel, Jimmy. When the water's moving faster than the boat, you can't control a thing.

Love skimmed over the surface like a sailboat, grabbing me up and carrying me along one minute, the speed dizzying, the view passing by so quickly I couldn't take it in. The next minute, my little love boat was swamped in a storm, overturned, the sail pointing toward the murky depths, everything upside down. I was trying to swim with legs of lead. I'd never thought of love this way—as something that moved with the ebb and flow of currents. Push and pull. Joy and pain. Fear and trust. Falling, and trying to balance, and falling again.

For those who believe Trump's Wall is the solution to stopping the inflow of drugs to the US, here is an interesting stat: 95%-97% of the drugs coming into the U.S. are coming by water, via non-commercial boats, container ships, fishing boats, speed boats and even submarines.

She watched the hulk of marriage drifting down on her frail speed-boat of aspiration, and steered in desperate circles.

Speed Bonnie Boat.

When you’ve been on a boat for a while, its sounds gets to be like the sound of your own heartbeat. It’s always there, constant, steady, until after a while you don’t hear it anymore. Then something changes. The speed, or the rhythm, or the tune. Suddenly the sound rings in your ears.

How the excitement comes upon me to tell it all! In the quest of writing, the heart can speed up with anticipation--as it does, indeed, during the chase itself of whales. I can swear it, having done both, and I will tell YOU though other writers may not. My heart is beating fast; I am in pursuit; I want my victory--that you should see and hear and above all feel the reality behind these words. For they are but a mask. Not the mask that conceals, not a mask that I would have you strike through as mere appearance, or, worse, deceitful appearance. Words need not be that kind of mask, but a mask such as the ancient Greek actors wore, a mask that expresses rather than conceals the inner drama. (But do you know me? Una? You have shipped long with me in the boat that is this book. Let me assure you and tell you that I know you, even something of your pain and joy, for you are much like me. The contract of writing and reading requires that we know each other. Did you know that I try on your mask from time to time? I become a reader, too, reading over what I have just written. If I am your shipbuilder and captain, from time to time I am also your comrade. Feel me now, standing beside you, just behind your shoulder?)

This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.

Alex Stowe, head mage of Artimé, stood alone at the helm of the magical white boat called Claire, speeding eastward over the waves. The island, his friends, and all the people who were gathered on the glorious green lawn grew smaller and smaller behind him. He didn’t know where he was going. He only knew that his identical twin brother, Aaron, was out there somewhere. In trouble, definitely, but alive—Alex could feel the life in his own broken soul. He also knew that there was no one else in the world who would rescue Aaron.

Aligning an organization is like preparing for a long sailing trip. First, you need to be clear on whether your destination (the mission and goals) and your route (the strategy) are the right ones. Then you can figure out which boat you need (the structure), how to outfit it (the processes), and which mix of crew members is best (the skill bases). Throughout the journey, you keep an eye out for reefs that are not on the charts.

My poor boat poked along the waterway with the blinding speed of a manatee.

Once aboard Top Job, George and Nancy had the mainsail and jib up in record time. Bess dutifully coiled the sheets. “The wind is perfect.” George sighed happily, taking the tiller. Top Job sailed smoothly, gathering speed as the sails filled. The boat was running before the wind. As the craft approached the mouth of the harbor, George noticed a post she assumed was a racing marker. She decided to have a look at it, thinking she might take part in Saturday’s races. “Ready about, hard alee!” she called. Nancy uncleated the jib sheet. Then she and Bess scrambled to the other side of the boat. Nancy trimmed the jib sheet, cleating it on the starboard side. George handed her the tiller, saying, “Try her. She handles beautifully.

One young fellow pointed to another steamer in the distance, and said it was the Lady of the Lake, a United States vessel which until recently was thought to be the fastest boat on the Lake; but she had just lost a trial-of-speed race to the new Royal Mail Standard boat, the Eclipse, which outran her by four minutes and a half. And I said didn't that make him proud, and he said no, because he had bet a dollar on the Lady. And all present laughed. Then something came clear to me which I used to wonder about. There is a quilt pattern called Lady of the Lake, which I thought was named for the poem; but I could never find any lady in the pattern, nor any lake. But now I saw the boat was named for the poem, and the quilt was named for the boat; because it was a pinwheel design, which must have stood for the paddle going around. And I thought that things did make sense, and did have a design to them, if only you pondered them long enough. And so perhaps might be with recent events, which at the moment seemed to me entirely senseless; and finding out the reason for the quilt pattern was a lesson to me, to have faith.

I am still vaguely haunted by our hitchhiker’s remark about how he’d “never rode in a convertible before.” Here’s this poor geek living in a world of convertibles zipping past him on the highways all the time, and he’s never even ridden in one. It made me feel like King Farouk. I was tempted to have my attorney pull into the next airport and arrange some kind of simple, common-law contract whereby we could just give the car to this unfortunate bastard. Just say: “Here, sign this and the car’s yours.” Give him the keys and then use the credit card to zap off on a jet to some place like Miami and rent another huge fireapple-red convertible for a drug-addled, top-speed run across the water all the way out to the last stop in Key West … and then trade the car off for a boat. Keep moving. But this manic notion passed quickly. There was no point in getting this harmless kid locked up—and, besides, I had plans for this car. I was looking forward to flashing around Las Vegas in the bugger. Maybe do a bit of serious drag-racing on the Strip: Pull up to that big stoplight in front of the Flamingo and start screaming at the traffic: “Alright, you chickenshit wimps! You pansies! When this goddamn light flips green, I’m gonna stomp down on this thing and blow every one of you gutless punks off the road!” Right. Challenge the bastards on their own turf. Come screeching up to the crosswalk, bucking and skidding with a bottle of rum in one hand and jamming the horn to drown out the music … glazed eyes insanely dilated behind tiny black, gold-rimmed greaser shades, screaming gibberish … a genuinely dangerous drunk, reeking of ether and terminal psychosis. Revving the engine up to a terrible high-pitched chattering whine, waiting for the light to change … How often does a chance like that come around? To jangle the bastards right down to the core of their spleens. Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.

And now?" I touched Baltic's cheek, drawing his attention away from tragic memories. "Is he being coldly mad now?" "No. I thought at first he was, but I see now that the act of being raised as a shade has changed him, leached the madness out of him." Behind us, present-day Constantine yelled, "You call me a douche canoe? I am not the douche canoe -- you are. No, you are more than that -- you are a douche speed-boat!" "Most of the madness," Baltic qualified.

I get it,” she said, skimming a physics textbook later that day at work. “Rowing is a simple matter of kinetic energy versus boat drag and center of mass.” She jotted down a few formulas. “And gravity,” she added, “and buoyancy, ratio, speed, balance, gearing, oar length, blade type

It made me feel like King Farouk. I was tempted to have my attorney pull into the next airport and arrange some kind of simple, common-law contract whereby we could just give the car to this unfortunate bastard. Just say: “Here, sign this and the car’s yours.” Give him the keys and then use the credit card to zap off on a jet to some place like Miami and rent another huge fireapple-red convertible for a drug-addled, top-speed run across the water all the way out to the last stop in Key West … and then trade the car off for a boat. Keep moving. But this manic notion passed quickly.

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, at high speed, her eyes fixed on the road, Abigail asked, a little loudly above the hum, 'Do you think that neurosis is when you lie to yourself so much that other people start to notice?' Christopher, who'd been looking through the blurred bridge railing down to the boats on the bay, turned and responded, 'I think it's when your past is like a floor set on water and it won't right itself, so you're shifting your weight and contorting yourself in ways that only make sense to you because no one else can see how you're trying to balance yourself, how you're trying just to stand.

This is the thing: if you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that's how you know you're on board the ship that serves hors d'oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who've never even heard of the words hors d'oeuvres of fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, "It's too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings." And then someone else on board says something like, "But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d'oeuvres." At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who'd been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life and the people on the small inflatable rafts can't get to him soon enough, or they don't even try, and the yacht's speed and weight cause and undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefather. And the boat sails on unfettered.

Evelyn continued to hold the wheel, recognizing the sensation of being in control of the rudder, while Martin explained how the direction of the wind was key, and how all the elements worked together to affect speed. "It's physics," she said, becoming fascinated by the complexity of the air and water flow working together, and comprehending how the shape of the hull and sails and the size of the keel all played an important part in the boat's movement.

The fortnight in Venice passed quickly and sweetly- perhaps too sweetly; I was drowning in honey, stingless. On some days life kept pace with the gondola, as we nosed through the side canals and the boatman uttered his plaintive musical bird-cry of warning; on other days with the speed-boat bouncing over the lagoon in a stream of sun-lit foam; it left a confused memory of fierce sunlight on the sands and cool, marble interiors; of water everywhere, lapping on smooth stone, reflected in a dapple of light on painted cielings; of a night at the Corombona palace such as Byron might have known, and another Byronic night fishing for scampi in the shallows of Chioggia, the phosphorescent wake of the little ship, the lantern swinging in the prow, and the net coming up full of weed and sand and floundering fishes; of melon and prosciutto on the balcony in the cool of the morning; of hot cheese sandwiches and champagne cocktails at Harrys Bar.

I gestured upward, which told Adam to tell my brother to speed up. Adam knew what I planned to do and shook his head at me. What a pain, to stop the boat and argue with him about it. He didn’t consult anyone before he tried a trick and busted ass. If we stopped, Sean would insist my turn was over, and I’d be done for the day. I wasn’t done. So I nodded my head vigorously. Adam shook his finger at me, scolding. Then he turned around and spoke to my brother. The drone pitched higher as the boat sped up. I relaxed, relaxed, relaxed and let the boat and the wave do the work for me. My muscles remembered what they’d tried to do last summer, and this time they were able to do it. I caught miles of air, a huge thrill, and one glance at the boat: four boys with their mouths open. Then I almost panicked as I lost my balance when my board hit its high point behind me. Almost- but I kept myself together. I rode gravity down the opposite wave. Immediately I arced out and back to pick up speed, and did a 360 with a grab. Landed it. Then a 540. Landed it. I thought I might be pushing my luck. I’d probably break my leg climbing back into the boat.

Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say “Get over it.” This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered. If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.

The bottom of the sea was aflame with a vast bloody glow that spread beneath the schooner; the light slid under the keel and illuminated the sails and rigging from below. It was as though we were on a boat in the Drury Lane Theatre, lighted by an invisible row of flares. ‘Phosphorescence?’ I ventured. ‘Look,’ whispered Jellewyn. The water had become as transparent as glass. At an enormous depth, we saw great dark masses with unreal shapes: there were manors with immense towers, gigantic domes, horribly straight streets lined with frenzied houses. We appeared to be flying over a furiously busy city at an incredible height. ‘There seems to be movement,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ We could see a swarming crowd of amorphous beings engaged in some sort of feverish and infernal activity. ‘Get back!’ Jellewyn shouted, pulling me violently by the belt. One of those beings was rising toward us with astounding speed. In less than a second its immense bulk had hidden the undersea city from us; it was as though a flood of ink had instantaneously spread around us. The keel received a tremendous blow. In the crimson light, we saw three enormous tentacles, three times as high as the mainmast, hideously writhing in the air. A formidable face composed of black shadows and two eyes of liquid amber rose above the port side of the ship and gave us a terrifying look.

Sean started the engine and putted through the marina waters, and Adam had the nerve to plop onto the seat across the aisle from me. Sean reached the edge of the idle zone and cranked the boat into top speed. Adam called to me so softly I could barely catch his words over the motor, “Close your legs.” “What for? I waxed!” I looked down to make sure. This was okay now, because Sean was facing the other way and couldn’t hear me in the din. Indeed, I was clean. I spread my legs even wider, put my arms on the back of the seat, and generally took up as much room as possible, like a boy. I glanced back over at Adam. “Does it make you uncomfortable for me to sit this way?” He watched me warily. “Yes.” “May I suggest that this is your problem and not mine?” He licked his lips and bent toward me. “If it keeps Sean from asking you out, it’s going to be your problem, and you’re going to make it my problem.” “Speaking of which,” I said, crossing my legs like a girl. “Thanks for staying out of my way. How the hell am I supposed to get Sean to ask me out when he’s all pissy?” “You wanted me to lose to him at team calisthenics? That was too sweet to miss.” “You didn’t have to win by quite so much, Adam. You knew I needed him in a good mood. You didn’t have to rub it in.” Adam grinned. “And you wanted me to stop growing?” “Do not make a joke about your size. If you can’t think of anything to talk about except your large size, please say nothing at all.

There is an inherent, humbling cruelty to learning how to run white water. In most other so-called "adrenaline" sports—skiing, surfing and rock climbing come to mind—one attains mastery, or the illusion of it, only after long apprenticeship, after enduring falls and tumbles, the fatigue of training previously unused muscles, the discipline of developing a new and initially awkward set of skills. Running white water is fundamentally different. With a little luck one is immediately able to travel long distances, often at great speeds, with only a rudimentary command of the sport's essential skills and about as much physical stamina as it takes to ride a bicycle downhill. At the beginning, at least, white-water adrenaline comes cheap. It's the river doing the work, of course, but like a teenager with a hot car, one forgets what the true power source is. Arrogance reigns. The river seems all smoke and mirrors, lots of bark (you hear it chortling away beneath you, crunching boulders), but not much bite. You think: Let's get on with it! Let's run this damn river! And then maybe the raft hits a drop in the river— say, a short, hidden waterfall. Or maybe a wave reaches up and flicks the boat on its side as easily as a horse swatting flies with its tail. Maybe you're thrown suddenly into the center of the raft, and the floor bounces back and punts you overboard. Maybe you just fall right off the side of the raft so fast you don't realize what's happening. It doesn't matter. The results are the same. The world goes dark. The river— the word hardly does justice to the churning mess enveloping you— the river tumbles you like so much laundry. It punches the air from your lungs. You're helpless. Swimming is a joke. You know for a fact that you are drowning. For the first time you understand the strength of the insouciant monster that has swallowed you. Maybe you travel a hundred feet before you surface (the current is moving that fast). And another hundred feet—just short of a truly fearsome plunge, one that will surely kill you— before you see the rescue lines. You're hauled to shore wearing a sheepish grin and a look in your eye that is equal parts confusion, respect, and raw fear. That is River Lesson Number One. Everyone suffers it. And every time you get the least bit cocky, every time you think you have finally figured out what the river is all about, you suffer it all over again.

It was one of those rare moments where one has a vision of the scope of the wild ocean. Not just small cylinders firing to keep a tiny engine running, but rather the giant, massive gears of nature, each one with its own reasoning, its own meta-logic, spinning in its particular circle in competition or in confluence with the gear below it. We zeroed in on the school, but our progress was painfully slow, It would have been foolish to speed into the tumult-we would have ruined our baits in the process and doomed our chances of hooking a tuna. But luckily, the commotion did not subside. If anything it only grew more frantic and exhuberant on our approach. Beneath the birds, beneath the dolphins, beneath the menhaden, there should have been an equally vast school of giant bluefin tuna, collaborating with vertebrates of the so-called higher orders of life to form the floor of the prey trap, sealing the baitfish in from below, while the dolphins and birds made up the trap's walls and ceiling. A strike from a giant tuna seemed inevitable.....as the boat moved forward, I saw seabirds gathering up ahead into a cloud, the size and violence of which I had never seen before. Gannets - big, albatross-like pelagic birds - flew hundreds of feet above the churning surface of the water. In a flock of many thousands, they whirled in unison and then, as if on command from some brigadier general of bird life, dropped in an arc, bird after bird, into the water beneath. The gyre of gannets turned in a clockwise direction, and down below, spinning counterclockwise, was the largest school of dolphins I'd ever seen. There in the angry blue-green sea, the dolphins had corralled a vast school of menhaden-small herringlike creatures that, when bitten, release globules of oil that float on the surface. Oil slicks flattened the water everywhere as the dolphins swirled around, using their exceptional intelligence and wolf-pack cooperation to befuddle and surround the fish, which in turn whirled in a clockwise direction.

At two hundred fifty feet in length with a surfaced displacement of 2,200 tons, the Samisho was not a small boat. Built to the 0+2+ (1) Yuushio-class standards at Kawasaki’s shipyards in Kobe, she’d begun service in 1992, and last year she’d been brought back to the yards for a retrofit. Now she was state of the art, an engineering and electronics marvel even by U.S. naval standards. She was a diesel boat, but she was fast, capable of a top speed submerged of more than twenty-five knots and a published diving depth in excess of one thousand feet. Her electronic detection systems and countermeasures by Hitachi were better than anything currently in use by any navy in the world, and her new Fuji electric motors and tunnel drive were as quiet as any nuclear submarine’s propulsion system, and much simpler to operate. The Samisho could be safely operated, even on war footing, with fifty men and ten officers—less than half the crew needed to run the Los Angeles-class boats, and one-fourth the crew needed for a sub-hunting surface vessel

It wasn’t until she had almost reached its lights that she heard another rider in the hills behind her. Ice slid down Kestrel’s spine. Fear, that the rider was Arin. Fear, at her sudden hope that it was. She pulled Javelin to a stop and swung to the ground. Better to go on foot through the narrow streets to the harbor. Stealth was more important now than speed. Beating hooves echoed in the hills. Closer. She hugged Javelin hard around the neck, then pushed him away while she still could bear to do it. She slapped his rump in an order to head home. Whether he’d go to her villa or Arin’s, she couldn’t say. But he left, and might draw the other rider after him if she was indeed being pursued. She slipped into the city shadows. And it was magic. It was as if the Herrani gods had turned on their own people. No one noticed Kestrel skulking along walls or heard her cracking the thin ice of a puddle. No late-night wanderer looked in her face and saw a Valorian. No one saw the general’s daughter. Kestrel made it to the harbor, down to the docks. Where Arin waited. His breath heaved white clouds into the air. His hair was black with sweat. It hadn’t mattered that Kestrel had been ahead of him on the horse path. Arin had been able to run openly through the city while she had crept through alleys. Their eyes met, and Kestrel felt utterly defenseless. But she had a weapon. He didn’t, not that she could see. Her hand instinctively fell to her knife’s jagged edge. Arin saw. Kestrel wasn’t sure what came first: his quick hurt, so plain and sharp, or her certainty--equally plain, equally sharp--that she could never draw a weapon on him. He straightened from his runner’s crouch. His expression changed. Until it did, Kestrel hadn’t perceived the desperate set of his mouth. She hadn’t recognized the wordless plea until it was gone, and his face aged with something sad. Resigned. Arin glanced away. When he looked back it was as if Kestrel were part of the pier beneath her feet. A sail stitched to a ship. A black current of water. As if she were not there at all. He turned away, walked into the illuminated house of the new Herrani harbormaster, and shut the door behind him. For a moment Kestrel couldn’t move. Then she ran for a fishing boat docked far enough from its fellows that she might cast off from shore unnoticed by an sailors on the other vessels. She leaped onto the deck and took rapid stock of the boat. The tiny cabin was bare of supplies. As she lifted the anchor and uncoiled the rope tethering the boat to its dock, she knew, even if she couldn’t see, that Arin was talking with the harbormaster, distracting him while Kestrel prepared to set sail.

Be careful, get comfortable, don't make any waves,' whispers the DNA. Conversely, the yearning for freedom, the risky belief that there is nothing to lose and nothing to gain, is also in our DNA. But it's of much more recent evolutionary origin ... It has arisen during the paste couple of million years, during the rapid increase in brain size and intellectual capacity associated with our becoming human. But the desire for security, the will to survive, is of much greater antiquity. For the present, the conflicting yearnings in the DNA generate a basic paradox that in turn generates the character – nothing if not contradictory – of man. To live fully, one must be free, but to be free one must give up security. Therefore, to live one must be ready to die. How's that for a paradox? But, since the genetic bent for freedom is comparatively recent, it may represent an evolutionary trend. We may yet outgrow our overriding obsession to survive. That's why I encourage everyone to take chances, to court danger, to welcome anxiety, to flaunt insecurity, to rock every boat and always cut against the grain. By pushing it, goosing it along whenever possible, we may speed up the process, the process by which the need for playfulness and liberty becomes stronger than the need for comfort and security. Then the paradox ... holding the show together may lose its equilibrium.

island—the pirates he’d defeated, before he in turn was defeated by the boy, and those hideous demon she-fish. But it didn’t matter whose camp it was. Anybody—or any thing—who got in their way would be no match for Nerezza’s raiders and their…guest. If the starstuff was on the island, they would have it. Slank tried not to think about what could happen to him if the starstuff wasn’t on the island. It has to be here, he told himself. It has to be. The men were lowering the boats now. Slank eyed the dark water; his face betrayed the apprehension he felt. “What is it?” sneered Nerezza. “Afraid of the fishes, are you?” “I ain’t afraid,” snapped Slank. “But I ain’t eager to meet up with them she-fish again.” He shuddered, remembering when he had last been there, remembering the feel of the mermaids’ teeth sinking into him, recalling his blood clouding the water. Nerezza, who wasn’t sure he believed in these she-fish, coughed out a laugh. It wasn’t natural, coming from him; it sounded a bit painful. He pointed to the darkened companionway. “There’s no fish—no creature alive—can possibly match our dark friend down there,” he said. “Nothing on that island, neither.” Slank looked back to the island. He figured it to be about two miles to the smoke if they went along the shore; far shorter if they cut directly across the island. Slank wanted to take the coast—he didn’t care to be in the jungle at night, not on this island—but Nerezza overruled him. “We’ll set off through the jungle,” Nerezza said. “Not only for the sake of speed, but for the sake of darkness. Our guest don’t want no light whatsoever. We go the darkest way.” “No light? How do we find the way?” “That ain’t up to us,” said Nerezza. “Our guest leads, and we follow. Mark my words, Mister Slank, there’s only one man in

One day, W.E. and I parked on the side of the highway and launched our boat in a ditch. Our fishing spot of choice that day was a bubbling culvert right under a fifty-five-mile-per-hour-speed-limit sign. When we started fishing at daylight, there was normal traffic on the road. But as the day went on, water came crashing over low points of the road and traffic stopped when the road was closed. We had set a goal of catching fifty-five largemouth bass under that sign, and we were paying more attention to reaching our goal than the rising floodwaters. As you have probably already realized, determination is a Robertson trait that is an asset most of the time. But this time, not so much! By the time we caught the fifty-five fish and returned to our truck, there was no sign of the road. The current from the water was so strong that our truck was shaking. I quickly realized we had underestimated the speed of the rising water and were now in a dangerous situation. I decided to get in the back of the truck with a life jacket on, while W.E. tried to navigate the submerged road. I had a better vantage point to see the painted lines of the highway, so every time he strayed from the road I banged on the roof of the truck. We traveled about a mile to a bridge on higher ground, where hundreds of people--along with the police--had gathered to watch the spectacle of the flood. I’m positive that we must have looked like Jesus walking on water. Noah might have used a giant ark to escape danger, but we used a truck and some redneck ingenuity! The crowd’s faces were filled with shock and bewilderment as they parted to make way for us. At some point, the people started cheering, and I felt like a politician running for office as I waved to the crowd. Even though we were basking in the glory of the moment and had an ice chest full of fish, we realized we were very fortunate to have survived.

Let’s take the threshold idea one step further. If intelligence matters only up to a point, then past that point, other things—things that have nothing to do with intelligence—must start to matter more. It’s like basketball again: once someone is tall enough, then we start to care about speed and court sense and agility and ball-handling skills and shooting touch. So, what might some of those other things be? Well, suppose that instead of measuring your IQ, I gave you a totally different kind of test. Write down as many different uses that you can think of for the following objects: a brick a blanket This is an example of what’s called a “divergence test” (as opposed to a test like the Raven’s, which asks you to sort through a list of possibilities and converge on the right answer). It requires you to use your imagination and take your mind in as many different directions as possible. With a divergence test, obviously there isn’t a single right answer. What the test giver is looking for are the number and the uniqueness of your responses. And what the test is measuring isn’t analytical intelligence but something profoundly different—something much closer to creativity. Divergence tests are every bit as challenging as convergence tests, and if you don’t believe that, I encourage you to pause and try the brick-and-blanket test right now. Here, for example, are answers to the “uses of objects” test collected by Liam Hudson from a student named Poole at a top British high school: (Brick). To use in smash-and-grab raids. To help hold a house together. To use in a game of Russian roulette if you want to keep fit at the same time (bricks at ten paces, turn and throw—no evasive action allowed). To hold the eiderdown on a bed tie a brick at each corner. As a breaker of empty Coca-Cola bottles. (Blanket). To use on a bed. As a cover for illicit sex in the woods. As a tent. To make smoke signals with. As a sail for a boat, cart or sled. As a substitute for a towel. As a target for shooting practice for short-sighted people. As a thing to catch people jumping out of burning skyscrapers.

When we go to tell our stories, people think we want it to have gone different. People want to say things like “sore losers” and “move on already,” “quit playing the blame game.” But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say “Get over it.” This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.

If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered. If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.

Billing was an archetypal playboy, ‘fascinated by fast aircraft, fast speed-boats, fast cars and fast women – he was highly attractive to women

Water Sports Package in Goa: Though you can enjoy individual rides like Parasailing , jet-ski etc according to your liking it is always profitable to opt for a complete package. The Full complete watersports package in Goa can cost effective and enjoyable. The Watersports package we provide includes – Parasailing, Jet-ski Ride, Bumper Ride,Banana Boat Ride and a Speed Boat Prasailing Explore Parasailing in Goa, one of the most fabulous water activities in Goa. Parasailing or para-ascending is an entertaining water sport with two significant instruments- parachute and speedboat. The speedboats speed ahead while the parachute is tied up to the speedboat. The parasail harness is at one end while the speedboat zooms ahead. Eventually the parachute flies high as the speedboat moves ahead. Imagine enjoying the feeling of flying in the sky with wonderful view of the sea. Banana ride Banana Boat Ride is one of the most fun-filled water sport activities and very popular with youngsters. If you are the sporty kinds and looking for adventure and thrill than definitely, you should try Banana Ride in Goa. The banana boat which is a bright yellow Banana shaped swinging ship attached to another speedboat and is pulled inside the water, lashing against waves, and the rider tries to turn it upside down. Banana Boat Ride is a great fun sport that will test your team spirit and stamina. For safety reasons every person willing to go for banana boat ride are supposed to wear a life jacket. Jet Ski Jet skiing in Goa is one of the most exciting and thrilling water sports done in Goa. Jet skiing is one of the perfect vacation activity with the friends and family. The average power of the jet skis is 100-135 hp, It is very easy to operate a jet ski, though you are usually accompanied by an instructor. Jet skiing should surely thrill you in Goa. Bumper Boat Ride A Bumper Boat ride is a very popular water sport activity in Goa. Suitable for all age groups, it's an exhilarating addition to the world of water sports. We provide one round of 500 meter or 600 meter max. Bumper ride is fun and captivating ride, in which a round pipe boat is coupled with a rate boat. As the speed of the boat increases, the bumper pipe jumps on the surface of the standard water. This is a totally amazing bumpy ride but the passengers get to almost fly on the waves. The joy filled shrieks are part and parcel of the bumper ride fun in Goa. Speed Boat Ride Most popular speed boat rides in Goa. The speed and the wind blowing against one's face gives a spine chilling experience. Breaking through the waves in a speed boat and feeling the whistling wind on your face is an exceptional experience. Cruising at more than 50 mph is like tearing the waves of the sea away, Speed Boat rides are sure to increase your heart beat and people find this activity very exciting so most of the tourists in Goa are attracted to speed boat rides. Location - Calangute, Baga, Candolim, Anjuna Timing - 10am - 5 pm Price - 1799/- Per Person Goa Waters[prts Activities +91 8432325222 /6222 Timming:10:00 AM-5:00PM

I can bring a glass of water smoothly to my lips because practice has taught me just how much contractile effort and speed is necessary to lift it and carry it through the air without either dropping it or throwing the water towards the ceiling. This familiar feel for the resistance of the glass of water, and for the appropriate muscular effort to both overcome that resistance and remain in constant control, are functions of the variable settings of the inhibitory response of the Golgi tendon organs. And I use this reflex mechanism every time I use a screwdriver or a wrench, row a boat, push a car, do a push-up or a deep knee bend, pick up an object—in short, every time I need a specific amount of effort delivered in order to accomplish a specific task—any time “too much” is just as mistaken as “too little.” This includes, of course, almost all the controlled uses to which I put my muscles. Now in order to be helpful in all situations, this variable setting of the tension values which trigger the reflex must be capable of both a wide range of adjustment and rapid shifts. Objects that we need to manipulate with carefully controlled efforts may be small or large, light or heavy. Building a rock wall can require just as much finesse and balance as building a house of playing cards, but the levels of tension which require equally sensitive monitoring are very different in each case. Since these relative tension values can be altered rapidly at will, and are refined with practice, it seems evident that they can be controlled by higher brain centers. This is presumably done through descending neural pathways which can generate impulses that either facilitate or inhibit the action of the Golgi/motor neuron synapses. In this way, control signals from higher nervous centers could automatically set the level of tension at which the muscle would be maintained. If the required tension is high, then the muscle tension would be set by the servo-feedback mechanism to this high level of tension. On the other hand, if the desired tension level is low, the muscle tension would be set this level.9

I hadn’t been much help packing for the trip. I was accustomed to America, where I was always within striking distance of a grocery store, gas station, or equipment supply. The Australian bush wasn’t like that. Parts of the Burdekin were dangerously remote, and these, of course, were the parts where we were headed. Steve had to pack his own fuel, water, food, spare tires, boat, engine, and extra parts. He loaded up the Ute. Swags went in, but no tent. We would be sleeping under the stars. As we headed out, it came to light that this would be a sixteen-hour trip--and the driving would be shared. “Remember one thing,” Steve said as he climbed over the seat. “If you see a road train coming, you’ve got to get clear off the road.” “Okay,” I agreed. “But I need you to explain what a road train is.” I learned that long-distance truckers in the outback drive huge rigs--double-deckers that are three trailers long. “Okay, great,” I said. “Drive on the left, and watch out for road trains. Got it.” Steve climbed into the back under the canvas canopy and stretched out on top of one of the swags. I wasn’t worried about falling asleep while I was driving. I was too nervous to be sleepy. The farther north I drove, the smaller the roads became. Cars were few and far between. I saw the headlights of an oncoming Ute. Maybe I’ll practice pulling off the road, I thought. I miscalculated the speed of the oncoming vehicle, slowed down more abruptly than I intended, and pulled completely onto the soft gravel shoulder. The draft of the passing truck hit our Ute like a sonic boom--it was a giant beast with a huge welded bull bar on its front and triple trailers behind. The road train flew past us doing every bit of seventy-five miles per hour, never slowing down. I realized that if I hadn’t pulled over, I would have probably been knocked off the face of the earth. I imagined a small paragraph buried deep inside the Eugene Register-Guard, my hometown newspaper: “Oregon Woman Bites the Dust.” Road trains owned the road, but I had passed my first test. I could do this! I should not have spoken so soon.

near-deserted parking lot, both buildings looking freshly painted and hopeful for a marina in which there were no yachts. The biggest boat moored at the dock looked to be a forty-footer. Most of the others looked to be lobster boats, aged and constructed of wood. A few of the newer ones were fiberglass. The nicest of those was about thirty-five feet long, the hull painted blue, the wheelhouse painted white, the deck a honey teak. She paid attention to it because her husband stood on it, bathed in their headlights. Caleb exited the car fast. He pointed back at her, told Brian his wife was not taking things well. Rachel was happy to note Caleb limped even as he speed-walked to the boat. She, on the other hand, moved slowly, her eyes on Brian. His gaze barely left hers except for the occasional flicks in the direction of Caleb. If she’d known she’d end up killing him, would she have boarded the boat? She could turn around and go to the police. My husband is an impostor, she’d say. She imagined some smarmy desk sergeant replying, “Aren’t we all, ma’am?” Yes, she was certain, it was a crime to impersonate someone and a crime to keep two wives, but were those serious crimes? In the end, wouldn’t Brian just take a plea and it would all go away? She’d be left the laughingstock never-was, the failed print reporter who’d become a pill-addicted broadcast reporter who’d become a punch line and then a shut-in and who would keep the local comics stocked with weeks of fresh material once it was discovered that Meltdown Media Chick had married a con man with another wife and another life. She followed Caleb up the ramp to the boat. He stepped aboard. When she went to do the same, Brian offered his hand. She stared at it until he dropped it. He noticed the gun she carried. “Should I show you mine? So I feel safer?” “Be my guest.” She stepped aboard. As she did, Brian caught her by the wrist and stripped the gun from her hand in the same motion. He pulled his own gun, a .38 snub-nosed revolver, from under the flaps of his shirt and then laid them both on a table by the

A good managerial record is more a function of which boat you get into rather than how effectively you row"1 Warren Buffett

..."When we go to tell our stories, people think we want it to have gone different. People want to say things like “sore losers” and “move on already,” “quit playing the blame game.” But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say “Get over it.” This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered."...

The Napoli was a rangy, powerful craft with graceful lines and was the pride of Tony’s life. The boat moved slowly out into the waters of Barmet Bay and then gathered speed as it headed toward the ocean. “Rough water,” Frank remarked as breaking swells hit the hull. Salt spray dashed over the bow of the Napoli as it plunged on through the white-caps. Bayport soon became a speck nestled at the curve of the horseshoe-shaped body of water. Reaching the ocean, Tony turned north. The boys could see the white line of the shore road rising and falling along the coast. Soon they passed the Kane farm. Two miles farther on they came within sight of the cliff upon which the Pollitt house stood. It looked stark and forbidding above the rocks, its roof and chimneys silhouetted against the sky.

The tendency to focus on the positive comes long before the customer actually makes a purchase decision. Early in the sales process, for example, when sellers are trying to get to higher levels within the account, a salesperson might say, “Mr. Customer, I would like to get a few minutes with your CFO to show him how cost-effective our products are relative to increasing productivity and maximizing the return on your investment.” Sounds like a mini elevator pitch, doesn’t it? Here’s the reverse. “Mr. Customer, would it make sense to spend a few minutes and bring your CFO up to speed, so he doesn’t have a knee-jerk reaction and torpedo the idea?” In preparation for QBS training events, I always ask for a conference call to customize the material for the intended audience. But I don’t ask for a manager’s time so I can “understand their business and deliver better training.” Although these are positive benefits, they don’t necessarily create a sense of urgency. Therefore, I am more inclined to ask a vice president of sales for time on their calendar, “so we don’t completely miss the boat at the upcoming training event.” Both of these questions refer to benefits that would come from strategizing in advance. But how you ask does make a difference.

Your friend with the speed boat? That’s Felix Bellamy,” he said. “… and who is Felix Bellamy?” Lark asked. “Julien’s fuck-up of an older brother,” Leo told her. “And Marla Singer? That’s his mom.

At one point, Le Bon perches on the bow of the yacht, his hair billowing in the wind as the boat speeds along, the leader of a pack of handsome, carefree young men heading towards a bright future. This particular shot became one of the most indelible images of a 1980s.

There were much larger things as well. Otters and beavers and turtles and platypuses. Were they to break out in song, Joe would have thought it none the stranger. After all, the river did sing. At one point, a beaver placed its tiny hands on the aft of the boat, as if to aid their speed, using its slight might to push.

Maximising enjoyment All students want to enjoy their classes. This simple truth means that teachers who can make learning fun will, other things equal, be more successful. If the only way students can enjoy themselves is to ignore the class and play on their phones, then student enjoyment is a headwind that slows the boat’s progress. By making learning fun, teachers can adjust the sails to take advantage of the wind and speed the boat up. The progress it makes may not be directly towards our destination, but we can use the sails nonetheless to pick up speed and get closer to it than we would otherwise have done.

If the line is 50 ft long and it takes 10 seconds to tow it, your boat speed is 0.6 times 50 divided by 10, or 3.0 kts.

Aim to be three or four boat lengths behind the line with 45 seconds to go. Control your speed carefully using the mainsheet. Keep the boat creeping forward as slowly as you can – most of the sail will be flapping. With five seconds to go, you should be one length behind the line. Pull in the mainsheet, hike out and start beating. You should cross the line just after the gun with full speed. Boat G has followed this advice. If you’re too early, let out the sail in good time and slow down.

Focusing narrowly, whether on a narrow market or a narrow product line, brings important benefits. Whether for entrepreneurs writing their first business plan or those toiling inside a large company, these benefits can be material. They: Limit the resources—human, financial, and otherwise—required to move forward Aid in understanding the target market's unique and perhaps unmet wants and needs Enhance speed to market Get everyone rowing the boat in the same direction

Speed is measured as distance divided by time (miles per hour or meters per second). For the speed of light to remain constant, distance and time have to change. Let’s go back now to Galileo’s shipboard experiment, using a beam of light instead of a stone. On a boat that’s moving at a uniform speed across the water, shine a flashlight down the mast, and it will strike the deck at the base of the mast. The observer on the dock agrees with that. But from her vantage point on the dock, if she had a precision measuring tool, she would see the light travel a tiny extra distance, the distance the ship has moved in the time it took the light to reach the bottom of the mast. Brought to you by | University of Wisconsin Madison Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 5/11/19 3:47 PM 12 • GRAVITY’S CENTURY But the speed of light, which is measured in meters per second—again, distance divided by time—is a constant. So if the observer on the dock finds that light traveled an extra distance, the only way its speed can remain constant is if the light also took a longer time to travel. Time, therefore, is not immutable. The duration of time— measured as the ticks of a clock—is dif­ferent for observers who move at dif­ferent speeds. Each sees the other’s clock slow down. Even more strangely, distance is not absolute either; it appears to contract in the direction of motion.

Speed is measured as distance divided by time (miles per hour or meters per second). For the speed of light to remain constant, distance and time have to change. Let’s go back now to Galileo’s shipboard experiment, using a beam of light instead of a stone. On a boat that’s moving at a uniform speed across the water, shine a flashlight down the mast, and it will strike the deck at the base of the mast. The observer on the dock agrees with that. But from her vantage point on the dock, if she had a precision measuring tool, she would see the light travel a tiny extra distance, the distance the ship has moved in the time it took the light to reach the bottom of the mast. But the speed of light, which is measured in meters per second—again, distance divided by time—is a constant. So if the observer on the dock finds that light traveled an extra distance, the only way its speed can remain constant is if the light also took a longer time to travel. Time, therefore, is not immutable. The duration of time— measured as the ticks of a clock—is dif­ferent for observers who move at dif­ferent speeds. Each sees the other’s clock slow down. Even more strangely, distance is not absolute either; it appears to contract in the direction of motion.

Take the case (to use an easy example) of a river, carrying boats and communicating to them its own velocity, yet limited by their own inertia so that, all the rest being equal, the more heavily loaded will be carried more slowly. Hence it can be stated that the speed of the boats comes from the river, the slowness, from the load; the positive, from the force of the propelling agent, the privative, from the inertia of the propelled. Quite in the same manner it may be said that God contributes to the creatures their perfections, yet is limited by their receptivity. Thus all goods are due to the divine force; the evils, to the torpor of the creature.

had done what he had asked. He had crawled into this tunnel, waiting to jump back out: ‘Surprise!’ Except surprise had come rushing at him, no warning, sending something sharp into the side of his skull. Oscar had sent him to his death. Beyond him and nearer the tunnel entrance, the weighty sound of earth and rocks tumbling made Oscar’s heart thump. The whole tunnel was unstable and, if he didn’t move fast, he could become the next dead body crushed in this narrow tomb. A fizzing sound and the torchlight died. Oscar whimpered. There were no thoughts, only an urge to run, which was impossible, so he decided to crawl with such speed that he was certain he left bits of skin behind from his palms and knees. There had been something clutched in Leo’s fist and Oscar knew he needed it so he pressed his lips together and edged his hand out in the dark until he touched cold flesh. The rubbery shock of lifeless fingers made him grit his teeth as he prised out the thing held in their grasp. A lighter. By its flame, he made his way back to the hidden cove. Chapter 50 Oscar, ten years ago. The rest of the night was a broken-legged bird, limping and slow. Oscar sat in the boat in the cove, too scared to leave, too scared to stay. He didn’t know how much time had gone by when the lights on the water disappeared and a quiet fell once more. Those words kept looping in his head, a piece of string that tied itself around his brain and pulled tight. Dead, dead, dead, dead. The slapping waves smacked against the side of

World-class rower Craig Lambert has described how it feels in Mind Over Water (Houghton Mifflin, 1998): Rowers have a word for this frictionless state: swing. . . . Recall the pure joy of riding on a backyard swing: an easy cycle of motion, the momentum coming from the swing itself. The swing carries us; we do not force it. We pump our legs to drive our arc higher, but gravity does most of the work. We are not so much swinging as being swung. The boat swings you. The shell wants to move fast: Speed sings in its lines and nature. Our job is simply to work with the shell, to stop holding it back with our thrashing struggles to go faster. Trying too hard sabotages boat speed. Trying becomes striving and striving undoes itself. Social climbers strive to be aristocrats but their efforts prove them no such thing. Aristocrats do not strive; they have already arrived. Swing is a state of arrival. The

Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) is a kind of wonder wood. Its low density makes it easy to shape, whether with a chisel, a plane, or a handsaw. Its open cell structure makes it light and buoyant, and in rowing lightness means speed. Its tight, even grain makes it strong but flexible, easy to bend yet disinclined to twist, warp, or cup. It is free of pitch or sap, but its fibers contain chemicals called thujaplicins that act as natural preservatives, making it highly resistant to rot while at the same time lending it its lovely scent. It is beautiful to look at, it takes a finish well, and it can be polished to a high degree of luster, essential for providing the smooth, friction-free racing bottom a good shell requires.

Packet Steamers Generally Packet Steamers, ships or boats are regularly scheduled vessels carrying mail. Sometime armed these ships carried all types of mail although the name gives the impression that they only carried carried bulk mail. Reliability was most important and the service was first started by the British to carry embassy mail packets to the Empire’s colonies, outposts as well as Consulates and Embassies. Although the name denotes smaller high speed vessels the English designation “packet boat” can denote a large ocean liner. In wartime these vessels were expected to run regular shipments past the gauntlet of warships and privateers. Some even had to evade marauding pirates. In 1829, pirates captured the packet Topaz and murdered her crew after looting her. In time commercial steam liners began to work regular coastal and international schedules having contracts from governments to carry mail as well as passengers and high-value cargo. Their services retained the name "Packet". The term was frequently used to identify American coastal vessels that carried cargo and passengers on routes from Maine to Cuba and beyond.

Chance dug deep into the dirt, his front end rising like a speed boat accelerating through water. I grabbed the saddle horn, surprised by his enthusiasm, but I was just as anxious to run as he was. I gave him the reins to go.

One matter has been settled by this war which my association with the Navy has led me to be particularly interested in. The U-boat campaign was a failure. It has been demonstrated that the submarine is not the most formidable naval weapon after all. The speed, efficiency, and resourcefulness of the Allied torpedo boats and destroyers have removed that question from the realm of debate.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE? “The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as ’railroads’ and the federal government must preserve the canals. . . . If canal boats are supplanted by ’railroads,’ serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, hostlers, repairmen, and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed growing hay for the horses. . . . As you may well know, Mr. President, ’railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ’engines’ which, in addition to endanging life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.” The above communication was from Martin Van Buren, then governor of New York, to President Andrew Jackson on January 21, 1829. In 1832 Van Buren was elected vice president of the United States under Andrew Jackson’s second term. In 1836 Van Buren was elected president of the United States. It is also interesting that the first railroad into Washington, DC, was completed in time to bring visitors from Philadelphia and New York to Van Buren’s inauguration. Sources: Janet E. Lapp, “Ride the Horse in the Direction It’s Going,” American Salesman, October 1998, pp. 26–29; and The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 20 (Chicago: World Book—Childcraft International, Inc.), 1979, p. 214. 2

Far out over the water a flock of boats moved by, heading south to the Keys, or east to Bimini, the Gulf Stream, and even beyond. A large sportfisher went roaring right over the deep spot where I had put Patrick, kicking up a high rooster tail in its wake. I wondered whether it would make enough turbulence to rip him free of his anchor; perhaps he would shoot up to the surface like a nightmare cork, and bob along behind the speeding boat, all the way to the Bahamas.

Maia opened her eyes and saw a canopy of trees and, shining through the topmost leaves, a high, white sun. She could smell the rich, heady smell of orchids and hear a bird whose single piercing cry came clearly over the puttering sound of an engine. Then the overhanging trees disappeared. She was looking up at a pale, clear sky, and the light was suddenly so dazzling that she closed her eyes for a moment, because she did not want to wake up or to stop. She wanted what was happening to her to go on and on and on. She was lying on a groundsheet on the bottom of a boat. They were moving steadily through the water, not fast, not slowly; the perfect speed to lull her back to sleep. She was covered by a gray blanket. She pushed it off and saw that her leg was bandaged. It throbbed but not unpleasantly…it seemed to belong to someone else. She closed her eyes and slept again. When she woke once more, it was to find that something was resting against her side, snoring gently: a dog the color of dark sand… So then she turned her head and saw behind her Finn, sitting quietly in the stern, with his hand on the tiller--and knew she was on the Arabella and safe.

The propellers of Damon's Whizzer will be of the pusher type, and will revolve in dense, compressed air, almost like water, and that will do away with high speed motors, with all their complications, and make traveling in the clouds as simple as taking out a little one-cylinder motor boat. How's that, Tom Swift? How's that for an idea?

THEINT WIN HTET Business and Petroleum Trade in Yangon, Myanmar.........SBP Trades in high-speed diesel oil, a product used as a fuel in medium and high compression ignition engines such as those in commercial vehicles, generators, locomotives, boats, and pumps. SBP primarily transacts with private filling stations, marine industry and commercial industrial customers

At the same time, my thought processes, my rational thinking abilities, took on a heightened sense of clarity, a greater economy and speed, as I assessed our rapidly evolving circumstances and calculated how we could best try to direct the boat to maximise our chances of reaching land quickly.

By early afternoon the Carpathia had passed the last of the ice and could begin to pick up speed, but at 4:00 p.m its engines were stopped. Father Anderson then appeared on deck in his clerical garb, followed by Carpathia crewmen carrying four corpses sewn into canvas bags. These were the bodies of two male passengers, one fireman, and one seaman, that had been brought aboard from the lifeboats. Each of the canvas bags in turn was laid on a wide plank and covered with a flag. As the words “Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed, and we commit his body to the deep” were read aloud, the bodies were tipped into the sea one at a time. A large crowd stood nearby with heads bared. The canvas bags had been weighted so that the bodies would fall feet first but one of them struck the water flat. A Carpathia passenger wrote that he would never forget the sound of that splash. One of those buried at sea was first-class passenger William F. Hoyt, the heavy man who had been pulled into Boat 14 and died shortly thereafter. When May Futrelle learned that a large man had been lifted into one of the lifeboats, she questioned the crew of Boat 14 but soon realized that the man they described could not have been her husband. She also heard that Archibald Gracie had been pulled under with the ship and worked up her courage to ask him if he had suffered as he was being dragged down. Gracie reassured her that if he had never come up, he would have had no more suffering, giving May some comfort that perhaps Jacques had not endured an agonizing death. That afternoon Charles Lightoller had a serious talk with the three other surviving officers, Pitman, Boxhall, and Lowe, about what lay ahead. It was agreed that their best hope for escaping what Lightoller called “the inquisition” that awaited in New York was to immediately board the Cedric, scheduled to sail for Liverpool on Thursday. Their case was taken to Bruce Ismay who sent a message to Philip Franklin suggesting that the Cedric be held for the Titanic’s crew and himself. Ismay also asked that clothes and shoes be put on board for him. The cable was signed “Yamsi,” his coded signature for personal messages.

Tom,” he said to his son, “you have done a wonderful thing. Not only have you completed a marvelous invention and gained thereby a lot of money, and more in prospect, but you have aided in the world’s progress to no small degree. “Speed in transportation is the big problem before the world of commerce today. To move goods from point to point safely and cheaply, as well as rapidly, is the great task of this age. We are entering the Age of Speed. The railroads must solve the problem to compete with motor-truck traffic and fast boats on the lakes and rivers of our land. “You have, by your invention, shoved the clock of progress forward. I am proud of you, my boy. I know now that, no matter what may happen to me, you will make an enviable mark in the world of invention. “You have done much before for the Government in time of stress. But war engines of any kind are not worthy examples of inventive genius beside such a thing as this. “It is the inventions of peace, rather than those of war, that stand for human progress.

ridden the Star Ferry from Hong Kong to Kowloon and back, had suffered two hours of rain in Hong Kong’s Wanchai District, had gone up and down the Peak Tram, and had arrived at Hong Kong’s Jetfoil terminal just in time to catch the last high-speed boat to Macau.

Time for him to hit the keys, stroke the consonants, pluck the vowels. When he gets back to the campsite, he immediately puts himself to work, smoking like a chimney in his tent, sitting cross-legged, and trying to keep pace with his mind. “Slow down, you bastard!” But it will not; he will have to speed up. “Come on, hands! Get your goddamn shit together.” He writes on well into the night, sweating like a mule, depositing a plethora of verbs and adjectives on paper and sending out contradictory vibes into the marshes and forest; he smiles like a dang fool during this ungodly hour, this evil hour, this hour of the wolf.

Too bad about that Caspian tern,” and “Where’s the nearest restroom?” She was in the midst of pointing it out when Lucas Holt strode past. He’d shucked his waders and wore work pants tucked into rubber boots, along with an obviously hand-knit sweater the color of smoke. It smelled like smoke, too—like wood smoke curling through crystal clear air on a winter’s night. She had a quick image of him kneeling next to a campfire, blowing on the flames, while she snuggled under a blanket to keep warm. She shook it off. It was just a fantasy, because she and Lucas Holt would never find themselves camping together, anywhere. She’d rather run into Lost Souls Wilderness across the bay and take her chances with the bears. Usually Lucas ignored her and her passengers. They weren’t his speed; they didn’t bring coolers of beer on the boat or boast about the size of their last catch. But this time he paused and cast a charming smile across her little crew of elderly naturalists. “Sorry about the close call out there. I’m training a new guy. He still has a few things to learn. I hope no one got wet because of that bonehead move.” Lucas had dark hair and dark stubble and dark eyes and no wonder she secretly called him Lucifer. But he was good-looking; she had to admit that. Not that it mattered. Character was what counted. Not looks. “You’re seriously going to blame your crew?” she asked. A hint of irritation crossed his face. She hated the way he always looked at her—as if she was a frivolous birdbrain hippie chick. She had part of a PhD, for pete’s sake. But that seemed to mean nothing to him, even though she’d mentioned it more than once. “Just explaining what happened. He got a little carried away. He won’t do it again.” “I hope not because I have witnesses. And I’d really prefer not to go the harbormaster again.” His dark eyebrows quirked together. “On the one hand, I doubt that’s true, because I’m sure it gives you a special kind of joy to report on me. On the other hand, maybe it is true because I hear it didn’t go so well the last time.” She gritted her teeth together. Unfortunately, he had a point. After her third trip to the harbormaster’s office, she’d decided there had to be better ways to handle her feud with Lucas. Sadly, she hadn’t figured them out yet. “I am not easily deterred,” she said stoutly. “Especially when it comes to Ruby’s safety.” Lucas smiled down at Ruby, who glowed back at him. Darn him. That smile changed things in an unfortunate way. If he ever smiled at her like that… She sighed. Luckily, there was no chance of such a thing.

Her weight—46,328 gross tons … 66,000 tons displacement. Her dimensions—882.5 feet long … 92.5 feet wide … 60.5 feet from waterline to Boat Deck, or 175 feet from keel to the top of her four huge funnels. She was, in short, 11 stories high and four city blocks long. Triple screw, the Titanic had two sets of four-cylinder reciprocating engines, each driving a wing propeller, and a turbine driving the center propeller. This combination gave her 50,000 registered horsepower, but she could easily develop at least 55,000 horsepower. At full speed she could make 24 to 25 knots.

Chance sat across from me, a bemused expression on his face. “You guys do this often?” “Do what?” He waved a hand. “Spontaneous, dangerous, gut-based midnight treks.” “Ah, those.” I scratched behind Coop’s ear. “Yes. Yes we do.” Chance snorted. “Must be exhausting. I hope they’re actually out there. I’ve got a meeting in the morning, and would hate to lose a night’s sleep over nothing.” That dampened my enthusiasm. What if the Trinity weren’t still on Loggerhead? Doubts crept in. Upon reflection, borrowed camping equipment wasn’t much to go on. Yet I’d cajoled my friends into a tiny boat speeding out to sea. We reached the midway point, where, ever so briefly, land dropped from sight in all directions. That moment always gave me a chill, but it went double tonight. I had a sudden jolt of perspective: how small our vessel was in the wide, wild Atlantic. This is necessary. We need to solve the problem. But misgivings had taken firm root. The Trinity weren’t even our biggest concern. Not anymore. My mind flashed to grim-faced men in dark suits, staring down from above.

Things go wrong when you fish, and those chances increase when you’re in a boat. Often this has to do with what’s known as human error. This is the preferred term because it doesn’t name the human who made the error, especially when that human is me. Once, Dave and I were in his canoe on the last quarter mile of a long day on the water. We were around a bend from the takeout. Beyond one final rapids we would pull over and load up his van. The only thing standing in our way was a large rock. The current picked up and moved us faster, but it would be easy to avoid the rock. It would almost be harder to hit it than to miss it. I was in the bow, Dave was in the stern. Without question he was the captain, I’m not sure a fifteen-foot canoe has a captain, but Dave would be the captain of anything from a kayak to a steamer. “Go to the left of the rock,” he bellowed. This could not have been clearer and took on some urgency as the rock got nearer. Yet we rowed at cross-purposes and continued to head straight toward it. In search of clarity I shouted: “Our left or the rock’s left?” The metaphysical nature of this question has remained with me over the years. If it appeared in a Basho haiku, it might be considered cryptically wise or at least a noble mistranslation. Canoe in summer Floats slowly down the river Past the large rock’s left Not this time. The last thing I remember hearing, which echoed in my ears underwater as we turned over, was Dave saying emphatically, “The rock doesn’t have a left!” My tendency to overanalyze simple situations was captured in this question, though I’m embarrassed to admit in private moments it still makes sense to me that a rock can have a left. Hitting a rock with a canoe may have many reasons but one result. The canoe tipped at once, decisively, and Dave’s only concern was the fate of his tackle box, which occupied a place in his spiritual landscape like the Gutenberg Bible. Thankfully, the river wasn’t deep there, just a few feet. Once the tackle box was salvaged—which he always kept tightly shut in case of this exact sort of catastrophe—Dave was in a fairly agreeable mood. He didn’t care about getting wet or even mention it. He had the grin of a teenager who’s just talked his way out of a speeding ticket. This was not the first canoe he’d tipped out of. He was seventy-five years old.

I was anxious to see the towns & villages through which we passed, but alas, in vain, time & space are annihilated by steam, we pass through a City a town, yea a country, like an arrow from Jupiters Bow. Schenectady, I can only say I passed through it because it is on the rout... At Utica we stopped to dine, had only time to pass from the Cars to the hotel & dined on the high pressure plan, they told me it was Utica but I have no memorial, I know nothing of it... Oh, this constant locomotion, my body & everything in motion, Steam Boats, Cars, & hotels all cramed & crowded full the whole population seems in motion & in fact as I pass along with Lightning speed & cast my eye on the distant objects, they all seem in a whirl nothing appearing permanent even the trees are waltzing, the mind too goes with all this, it speculates, theorizes, & measures all things by locomotive speed, where will it end.

Where do you think you are going so fast? [Marine mammals] offer slowing down as a strategic intervention in a world on speed, and an appropriate response to the exact urgencies that made us feel we cannot slow down. It is the speed, the speed boats, the momentum of capitalism, the expediency of pollution that threatens the ocean, our marine mammal mentors, and our own lives. What if we could release ourselves from an internalized time clock and remember that slow is efficient, slow is effective, slow is beautiful?

My heart is racing like a speed boat Her hands around me is like a sheep’s coat She looks at me and smiles long And I melt like candy in the fire Our heart always seems to hum the same song The silence echoes the other’s desires Each stare searching the soul for clues Yet the sea only reflects the shade of blue.

The message left Kiel at a speed of 300,000 kilometres per second. The sequence of words keyed into Erwin Suess’s laptop at the Geomar Centre entered the net in digital form. Converted by laser diodes into optical pulses, the information raced along with a wavelength of 1.5 thousandths of a millimetre, shooting down a transparent fibreoptic cable with millions of phone conversations and packets of data. The fibres bundled the stream of light until it was no thicker than two hairs, while total internal reflection stopped it escaping. Whizzing towards the coast, the waves surged along the overland cable, speeding through amplifiers every fifty kilometres until the fibres vanished into the sea, protected by copper casing and thick rubber tubing, and strengthened by powerful wires. The underwater cable was as thick as a muscular forearm. It stretched out across the shelf, buried in the seabed to protect it from anchors and fishing-boats. TAT 14, as it was officially known, was a transatlantic cable linking Europe to the States. Its capacity was higher than that of almost any other cable in the world. There were dozens of such cables in the North Atlantic alone. Hundreds of thousands of kilometres of optical fibre extended across the planet, making up the backbone of the information age. Three-quarters of their capacity was devoted to the World Wide Web. Project Oxygen linked 175 countries in a kind of global super Internet. Another system bundled eight optical fibres to give a transmission capacity of 3.2 terabits per second, the equivalent of 48 million simultaneous phone conversations. The delicate glass fibres on the ocean bed had long since supplanted satellite technology.

Avril let go the fore strap as Miriam turned the speed wheel again and the engine revved faster, and the motor slid along the length of the butty. As Miriam passed, Avril handed her the looped end of the short towing strap, which Miriam dropped over the stud at the stern of Ceres, and then Avril felt Iris take up the tow with a sluggish jerk. The boats were now moving in line astern towards the first lock, with the butty following in the wake of the motor. Avril

It has been a great privilege to listen to the debate and to hear everybody work through with enormous detail. And I want to congratulate, as others have done, the work that has been done by the team. Then comes the BUT. I am really concerned that we have taken off like a boat going down one arm of the mangrove swamp at high speed, when in fact there was no discussion early on about which way the boat should go at all. And I really want to risk offending everybody in this room by saying that perhaps this study should not have been done at all. Because the outcome of it could have, to some extent, been predicted. And we have all reached this point now where we are leg hanging, even though I hear the majority of the consultants say to the board that they are not convinced there is a causality direct link between thimerosal and various neurological outcomes. I know how we handle it from here is extremely problematic.7 Are you reading his summation the same way I am? That maybe this is a study that should not have been done? In my entire life I’ve never known a scientist to argue against obtaining knowledge.

The team repeated the prerelease protocol with John and Judy, but this time, they held the pair in an acclimation pen for six months. They also built a fixed-position telemetry antenna receiver on a 110-foot-high fire tower on the island. This freed them from needing to use the jeep to tail the wolves, which Carley feared may have proved too intrusive. The fixed-position antenna held a ten-mile range. Carley attached a portable telemetry antenna to an eighteen-foot speed boat in case they needed to pursue the animals across the inlets or open water - a possibility that Margie had proven likely. As a joke, Carley also posed by John and Judy’s kennel box with a long sheet of paper, from which he read aloud while a colleague snapped photos. “Since the animals seem to understand more than they let on, we did another thing differently” the second time around, Carley quipped while showing the photo in a public presentation. “We read them The Plan.

If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.

her.     “I was cold,” Michelle drawled, fully equipped with a Georgian drip. “And I wanted to hear the radio.”     In no mood for a fight, Benny said nothing. His face tightened.     “Do you want me to drive you home or not?” Michelle asked.     “Yes, please drive me home, rookie.” Benny relaxed as he decided it wouldn’t have mattered if she had honked the horn to the beat of the radio songs while flashing the high beams on and off. The guy he was looking for didn’t show. Nobody was out in this rain.     “Do you want to go to your house or the boat?”     “The boat.”     The beat of the windshield wipers hypnotized Benny. The rain frizzled in his ears. He snapped out of it as they rode over the speed bump that accompanied the thirteen mile an hour sign at the entrance of the marina. “Do you want me to come in tonight?” Michelle asked.     “Not tonight, I’m beat,” Benny answered. Jesus Christ, I only slept with you once. It was a mistake. Can’t we just forget it?     Once home, Benny’s eyes found the clock on the microwave as he dropped his umbrella and shoes inside the door. His pupils narrowed in surprise as he realized it was past two o’clock in the morning. The

A schooner is a sailing vessel with two or more masts having fore and aft rigging. Usually the foremast of a schooner is shorter than the mainmast. These ships were first designed and used in Holland during the 16th or 17th century, however schooners became popular and most frequently used along the coast of New England. They were known for their ease of handling and being smaller were soon adopted for use as coastwise cargo vessels and fishing boats. Because of their speed and agility, they were also popular and used by pirates in the Caribbean. Schooners were reasonably maneuverable and could be handled by a smaller crew than most sailing ships. Because of their size, they usually drew less water than most sailing ships, thus allowing them to sail in relatively shallow water while still carrying enough cannons to present a threat to most merchant vessels prior to the 20th century. Schooners with three masts were first introduced around 1800. In the late 19th century, additional masts were added and some schooners were built with as many as six masts. The only seven-masted schooner, the ill-fated steel-hulled Thomas W. Lawson was built in 1902. The larger schooners only caught on towards the end of the days of sail ships but never replaced the larger square riggers and clipper ships that remained more popular as deep sea cargo vessels.

It looks like Wendell sailed the boat as far as Winterset and then headed out toward the islands. He left the sails up. There was no big sea running, but with the storms coming through, the normal northwesterlies were countered by the hurricane effect. The Lord probably has a seven-knot hull speed, and with the right puff of wind it should have gone much farther. When they found the boat, it was stalled and drifting. The jib was backwinded, sheeted to the windward side, in effect, blowing the bow

A net of human surveillance had been thrown over the neighborhood. He’d picked out a couple of them. Men who were too fit and too clean-cut. They were Agency muscle, ex–special operations types. They were excellent with a gun and terrific to have on your team if things went sideways, but they were too visible and Harmon had requested no babysitters. His request, though, had been ignored. He had also asked that they buy the woman a plane ticket so he could conduct the meeting in a nice, anonymous airline lounge out at Hong Kong International. It was a controlled environment. Much harder to bring weapons in. Easier to spot trouble before it happened. Tradecraft 101. That request had also been ignored. Langley felt the airport was too controlled and therefore too easy for the Chinese to tilt in their favor. The CIA wanted a public location with multiple evacuation routes. They had cars, safe houses, changes of clothes, medical equipment, fake passports, and even a high-speed boat on standby.

Langley felt the airport was too controlled and therefore too easy for the Chinese to tilt in their favor. The CIA wanted a public location with multiple evacuation routes. They had cars, safe houses, changes of clothes, medical equipment, fake passports, and even a high-speed boat on standby. They had thought of every contingency and had built plans for each. That was how worried they were. Stepping inside, Harmon scanned the café. The air-conditioning felt like being hooked up to a bottle of pure, crisp oxygen. He grabbed a paper napkin and starting at the top of his shaved head, wiped all the way down the back of his thick neck. He ordered a Coke in a can, no ice. He had learned the hard way about ice in foreign countries

Rowers have a word for this frictionless state: swing. . . . Recall the pure joy of riding on a backyard swing: an easy cycle of motion, the momentum coming from the swing itself. The swing carries us; we do not force it. We pump our legs to drive our arc higher, but gravity does most of the work. We are not so much swinging as being swung. The boat swings you. The shell wants to move fast: Speed sings in its lines and nature. Our job is simply to work with the shell, to stop holding it back with our thrashing struggles to go faster. Trying too hard sabotages boat speed. Trying becomes striving and striving undoes itself. Social climbers strive to be aristocrats but their efforts prove them no such thing. Aristocrats do not strive; they have already arrived. Swing is a state of arrival.

People want to say things like “sore losers” and “move on already,” “quit playing the blame game.” But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say “Get over it.” This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.

The wound that was made when white people came and took all that they took has never healed. An unattended wound gets infected. Becomes a new kind of wound like the history of what actually happened became a new kind of history. All these stories that we haven't been telling all this time, that we haven't been listening to, are just part of what we need to heal. Not that we're broken. And don't make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived is not a badge of honor. Would you call an attempted murder victim resilient? When we go to tell our stories, people think we want it to have gone differently. People want to say things like "sore losers" and "move on already, quit playing the blame game." But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they're winning when they say "Get over it." This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered. If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.

You are wrong, cher, the boat is going at top speed. But the Zuider Zee is a dead sea, or almost. With its flat shores, lost in the fog, there's no saying where it begins or ends. So we are steaming along without any landmark; we can't gauge our speed. We are making progress and yet nothing is changing. It's not navigation but dreaming.

A RIB is a rigid inflatable boat, and this has an engine at the rear which pushes the nose up and out of the water as it bounces along at a great speed. This was a good-sized one and I realised that it must have an antigrav component because it never sank in the water though the team of Neptunians got on with us. The marine engineer steering it took us out to the dive boat, a large – to our eyes – vessel over a mile offshore. We sat back and gripped the rope lacings along the sides and breathed in salt spray air, grinning foolishly at our friends and each other. The RIB engine was so noisy that we couldn’t really talk but we were relishing being right down at water level, streaking across the Thames estuary, heading for the most dangerous boat in the world.