21.
Dear readers: please note that I made an error in describing the proper tack for the starboard heading. It has been corrected in the previous chapter and has been clarified in this chapter.
De Panne was a small Belgian city near the border with France. The Pirate Fairy was about fly directly overhead and reveal itself to all the world. To the starboard was an empty beach far enough from prying eyes for the wooden sailing vessel to make landfall without being seen. To accomplish this the Fairy had to make a port tack, except that no one other than Zarina really knew what that meant or how to accomplish it. With land looming Zarina busily filled in her comrades.
Tack is the boats relation to the headwinds. Tacking is the process of turning a ship to either port or starboard in which the bow, during part of the turn, faces directly into the oncoming winds until the ship completes its turn. A seafaring ship cannot, under any circumstance, sail directly to into a headwind. Doing so is called putting the ship "in irons."
Instead, ships proceed forward by sailing at an angle to the headwinds and the sails themselves are turned so the vessel may continue pressing forward. This orientation is called "close-hauled." Since the ship will take the path of least resistance it will move in the direction of its keel as the hull cuts through the water (or atmosphere as the case may be). While sailing into the wind, however, any ship will list as the wind pushes against the ship causing it to lean.
"Questions?"
"Why is it called a port tack when we're turning to starboard?" Iridessa asked.
"Tack is the orientation of the ship to the headwind. Right now we are on a starboard tack, with the winds coming over the starboard bow. By turning starboard the winds will come over the port bow, so it's called a port tack."
Fawn wanted to know if tacking was anything like jibing, something that Bobble had them do when floating towards Lizzy's home a few summers previous. It was similar, jibing, though, referred to turning the ship when the winds were from the stern. But on a square rigged ship like The Pirate Fairy, the procedure was called weathering.
With time of the essence Zarina raced through the correct procedures and grilled her crew so they knew exactly what was expected of them. With too little time and too much work she had to accept that not everyone knew their responsibilities fully and instead she would keep watch over them to correct any mistakes.
The Pirate Fairy was to make a turn to the south west to avoid the town below and then make its course for the mountain range where the Wizard lived in his castle. The physical demands on the tiny fairies were extreme and even Gliss and Periwinkle joined the others above to help out. Zarina flitted about checking on everyone's work and offered bits of advice or corrections but was generally pleased with how well everyone was performing under pressure.
The frigate turned, slowly putting De Panne off to port. The captain pitched in so that the ship turned directly into the headwinds as it tacked to its new course. While sailing directly into the winds the Fairy had no propulsion and was moving both forward and turning to starboard entirely on momentum.
"Come on. Come on," Captain Zarina muttered, as if trying to will her ship to complete its turn before stalling in the oncoming winds. She watched and waited. The sails were now in their proper configuration and De Panne continued to slide across their bow.
Seconds passed like minutes and minutes like hours while the ship was in irons. Captain Zarina felt her ship slowing. The turn was not yet complete and it was losing momentum at an alarming rate.
"Helm, give us a nudge," she ordered Vidia.
"Aye, captain." Vidia flew up to a position even with the sails and created a whirlwind that forced the ship to starboard.
"Not too fast," Zarina yelled, as the ship listed a bit much for comfort. "We don't want to capsize."
Vidia slowed her winds and prodded the ship over until the Fairy was close hauled. The headwinds were now sufficiently coming from the port to allow the ship to move under its own power.
"Alright, well done. To your station helmsman."
Vidia returned to the wheel and made a steady course, watching the ship's compass and following Iridessa's precise navigational readings.
Captain Zarina then gathered everyone around the wheel to congratulate them on a job well done. She was especially appreciative that they needed so very little supervision. "We'll be doing plenty more of that as we sail to our destination, so you'll have quite a few opportunities to master these new skills."
~O~
The flying frigate moved at a modest but deliberate pace, one that kept everyone busy at their posts making small adjustments to get the most out of her sails. Periwinkle and Gliss came up from below decks with fresh baked goodies and glasses of chilled mouse milk to nourish those who worked on deck and high in the riggings. It was a brief if refreshing departure from the physically demanding labor required to operate and manage this hulking human ship.
More than once Tinker Bell and her friends thought about the ironclads they saw in the English Channel and silently wished that they could be sailing one of those way up here in the clouds. At least the work wouldn't be so backbreaking. Then they remembered what Zarina told them. All the work was done in confined spaces down below, with tons of coal shoveled into hot furnaces to keep the steam engines revved.
Maybe this wasn't so bad after all.
Fawn and Silvermist peered over the sides of the ship from time to time and noticed that they were passing over quite a few farms, vineyards and roads. Roads which were active with traffic at this time of day.
"If they look up those humans will see us," Silvermist observed. "We need to hide ourselves."
"Sil, can you give us some cloud cover?" Rosetta suggested.
"I've never done anything larger than a few rainclouds for the gardens," Sil remarked. "But I'll give it a try."
The tiny water fairy took flight and dove under the hull of the vessel. Spreading out her arms Silvermist called upon her talent to form a mist out of the water in the air around her. At first it wasn't much, but given some effort she formed a larger mist, zipping back and forth to try and cover the entire hull from prying eyes. Her efforts were met with success, but at a cost.
Less than an hour later she returned topside gasping for breath and looking drained. To cover the ship successfully for the entire flight was not practical. It wasn't enough to form a cloud to encase the ship, The Pirate Fairy would just move right through it. Someone would have to be posted ahead of the vessel at all times to maintain the heavy cloud cover and long term it proved to be quite exhausting for an experienced water fairy like Silvermist.
"Well, any other bright ideas?" Vidia groused.
"What about those wispy clouds up there," Iridessa suggested, pointing to some thin and elongated cirrus clouds also known as mares' tails which stretched across the sky.
Zarina spied them and decided to try and use them to obscure the ship. Those same mares' tails also worried her. According to her crew they always preceded a storm.
~O~
The Pirate Fairy was moving at a brisk clip, ascending to higher altitudes to find cover. The winds propelling the ship were now blowing from the aft across the ship and the higher the ship sailed the stronger those winds became.
"Can't we slow down?" Rosetta groaned. "These breezes are playing havoc with my delicate curls."
"Oh put a sock in it, Ro," Vidia grumbled.
"Humph, fast flyers. You know just because you have thick and coarse hair doesn't mean you can tell me to shut up," Rosetta screamed.
"Uh, Ro, say that again," Fawn asked.
"Gladly. Vidia has ugly hair. I mean you can see the split ends from here."
"Hey!"
"No, not that. Look. Hooh! I can see your breath. And mine," Fawn clarified.
Tinker Bell folder her arms around her body. "It does feel a bit chilled now."
Spike didn't notice it as much, even though she was not at this moment a winter fairy. It just came with the territory. "You'll be fine."
"No, I'm feeling it, too," Iridessa replied, having to talk a little louder over the blowing gales.
"Keep going," Zarina yelled. "We're not going to let a little chill keep us from that cover."
The Pirate Fairy began to falter, yawing a bit to the right. Zarina looked over and witnessed Vidia having trouble at the wheel. "Snap to, helmsman!"
"I'm on it. I'm on it." Vidia adjusted the wheel to put the ship back on course. "Sorry. I felt a little, I don't know, light headed I think."
"Need to take a break?"
"I'm fine," Vidia snapped, irritated by the accusation.
"Alright, we are making good time, let's keep pushing for those clouds," Zarina yelled out, trying to keep her crew focused and their spirits up.
"Look at that!" Iridessa gasped.
"What?"
"Can't you see it?"
"Yeah, me too."
The blue sky above them wasn't quite so blue. It was turning dark.
"Is it night?" Fawn asked.
"In the middle of the afternoon?" Rosetta replied.
"No, the sky below us is still bright and blue," Iridessa replied, pointing to the horizons. "It's just above us that the night sky is appearing."
"I have a bad feeling about this," Tinker Bell gulped.
"It's just your imagination," Zarina chimed in. Though in the captain's private thoughts her own doubts crept up. How high were they? Why was the night sky appearing during broad daylight? She thought about abandoning the clouds above when she heard a thunk. Spike, who had been positioned in the crow's nest had fallen from her perch and crash landed on the deck below. She had tried to fly down but lost control and had to settle for a controlled crash landing.
"What happened?"
"My wings," she clamored. "My wings are icing over."
Zarina examined them and felt the intense cold turning those gossamer wings brittle hard. It was getting very cold. Very much like the Winter Woods. Zarina was about to hand out dust for winter talents to everyone when the ship began to yaw, the bow turning away from the clouds.
"I haven't given an order yet, helmsman!" Zarina shouted. At the wheel she saw Vidia nearly unconscious. She was clinging to the wheel as it began to turn on its own, the rudder buffeted by the high winds.
"Zarina, we're too high," Tinker Bell yelled. She was taking deep breaths, gasping for air, as everyone was now doing. As Zarina was now doing. When did that happen? It happened when they weren't looking. The frigate was now plowing ahead at terrific speeds. No one noticed that the winds were more than a gale because the forward motion of the ship gave a false reading of wind speeds. Vidia didn't make a report because… because… because she was losing consciousness? Then there was Spike. And now Tinker Bell.
"Wh- What about your wings?" the captain asked her first officer.
"They feel... feel… co-." Tinker Bell blacked out, her eyes rolling back into her head and her body falling limp on the deck. Zarina's senses and mind began to fail her. Even breathing as deep and as fast as she was didn't seem to help.
"I've… I've taken us too… too high." Captain Zarina tried to flutter up to the wheel but had more trouble than expected. Her wings were icing over, both weighing her down and impairing her ability to control her flight against the winds that raced across the weather deck. Everyone was succumbing to the thin air.
A terrible sound caught the captain's attention. She looked up. The mainsail had torn to shreds. Then she watched as the royal did the same. "Save my ship. Save my crew." Those words echoed in her thoughts as Captain Zarina tried to remain conscious enough to pitch the ship down and out of danger.
Her mind couldn't concentrate. She couldn't trust her instincts. Or her senses. "Which lever do I pull?" Zarina landed on one that looked familiar. Was this it? She squeezed the trigger and pushed as hard as she could. Or was she pushing at all? Zarina couldn't tell.
Then, as if an answer to a prayer, the darkening sky above slowly turned blue.
"Yes. I did it."
Then it slowly turned green.
"Green? When did the sky turn green?"
Zarina then passed out from lack of oxygen. The Pirate Fairy had pitched downward, but was out of control. With powerful winds driving it the frigate was diving towards the earth below at fatal speeds. Winds swept across the deck and pushed anything not secured right off, including the majority of the passed out fairy crew.
Had any human by chance craned their head up and peered through a spyglass they might have seen an old sailing frigate plunging out of the skies surrounded by its fairy crew, unconscious and freefalling to their doom.
Don't you just love a good cliffhanger?