13685. Respect the privacy of your crew and their families. They do have lives onshore.
Rita and Te Rehutai sat quietly in a bush next to the shoreline. Pete was on the beach with his girlfriend Lucinda. Te Rehutai had snuck along for moral support. Rita, curious to find the best places in New Zealand for her and Patriot to (REDACTED) joined her fellow AC75. The pair listened to the conversation.
Pete had always been a nerd and found it hard to make decent conversation with a member of the opposite sex. "This sunset is beautiful."
Lucinda smiled, finding his attempts to charm her adorable. "You know what I like looking at even more?" She asked.
Pete looked at the chart he brought with him, a handy distraction from the beautiful woman next to him. "These wind predictions for Sydney Harbor?" He tried. Lucinda rolled her eyes.
In the bush, Te Rehutai lowered her binoculars. "No! She means your eyes. Not your brightest moment skipper."
Next to her, Rita snorted. "Geeze your skipper really is a dork Te Rehutai. No wonder he's never had a girlfriend before..."
Lucinda was about to say something to try and get her potential boyfriend to at least look at her when both jumped at the sounds of a fight in the bush. Pete got to his feet and with an apologetic look at Lucinda who simply shrugged, more amused than anything, allowed him to walk over to the noise. Pulling back the branches revealed Rita and Te Rehutai grappling with each other and doing their best to punch each other's faces in. Sighing and not trying to break them apart (he'd learned from Jimmy why that was such a bad idea) Pete simply turned and walked away.
"Ah, now where were we?" He asked Lucinda who put a hand over her mouth to hide her giggles. God this man was adorable!
The next morning, each yacht had to face the music as it were. Te Rehutai got a dressing down from Dalton and Rita had to face a very cross Sir Ben Ainslie.
"What did you do?" The British skipper asked with a groan. Rita's antics were as frustrating as they were legendary.
Rita, despite her obvious swollen black eye and the broken binoculars dangling around her neck, looked completely unrepentant. "I promise I was not trying to watch you and Georgie fu..."
"Alright! Alright! Alright!" Ben exclaimed to prevent her from finishing that sentence. Then who was it? Dean and Mandy?"
Rita blanched. "No, Trish said not to and Diana would kill me!" Sometimes she couldn't tell which sibling was scarier. Although Patriot's couch threats usually sufficed over Defiant's face bashing ones.
"Terry and Shelly? Jimmy and Jen?"
"Oh no, not after 17.0 almost broke my mast!" The momboat catamaran was downright terrifying sometimes.
"And did you learn anything from that?" Ben's tone told Rita exactly what he expected in an answer but Rita was not feeling sorry just yet.
"That catamarans who know how to box are scary?" She replied with a grin.
"Try again." Ben said, crossing his arms and staring down at her sternly.
Rita sighed. "I will respect the privacy of crew and their spouses..."
Ben let her leave after that and Rita happily joined Patriot outside the hanger. "Nice shiner. Was it worth it?" The American asked.
Rita looked at her. "Come with me and you'll find out dear." She purred.
Patriot's lecherous grin betrayed everything as the two headed hand and hand down to the same beach.
