"Bud Sparhawk - Primrose and Thorn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

mesh ribbon uncoiled from its housing. The thousand-ton weight at the keel's end started its familiar
swinging motion as the keel was unwrapped from its spindle. Primrose rocked in response to the
motion. The pendulum's swing slowed as the ribbon paid out farther and farther into the thick soup of the
atmosphere.
Finally the rocking motion dampened and Rams halted the winch, locking it in place. Only then did he
check the keelmeter. Although he relied more on the feel of the ship's trim when setting the keel depth, he
liked to assure himself of the setting.

A single glance told him that his instincts had been correct. He'd halted the keel at 1,400 meters, one
hundred meters shy of the theoretical setting the station master had calculated. He let an additional fifty
meters of the mesh keel pay out; it wouldn't hurt to have Primrose a little bottom-heavy on an upwind
run.

Rams reached for the sail controls. Primrose was being blown downwind at thirty meters per second,
relative to the station. The station he'd just left plodded along slower than the wind, held back only by
her massive droguesтАФa fancy word for sea anchors. The drogues that swung beneath the station's
bulbous form created drag and provided a measure of control. It was sailing, but using anchors to steer
instead of sails.

Rams hit the switch to release his mainsail from its housing on the main mast and braced himself. The ship
tilted even further to starboard as the wind bit the suddenly increased surface area. He immediately
played out the traveler, letting the main find the angle that would allow the fierce wind to flow across the
sail's face. He kept a careful eye on the pressure gauges from both sides of the wishbone that constrained
the sail, adjusting the sail's angle to maximize the front-to-back pressure differential. He wanted to get as
much lift as possible from the airfoil effect.

Primrose finally stopped rocking and curved into the wind as Rams adjusted the line. Primrose was
running at about sixty degrees to the wind when she finally balanced out and was making an appreciable
sixty meters per second.

"All right, girl, let's show old man Jupiter what we can really do," he said, deploying the jib from its
housing at the prow. There was a hellacious rattling from forward as the chain hoist protested the way the
wind whipped at the small jib and smashed it against the pressure hull. Rams winched the line back until
the jib sheets were taut and the small forward sail was funneling the wind along the back of the mainsail,
forming a venturi between them.

Primrose heeled even more as the force on her increased from the additional sail surface exposed to the
wind and turned tighter into the face of the wind. She was now running at about a forty degree angle.
Rams grinned in satisfaction as her speed increased proportionally. He watched the knotmeter rise past
seventy, seventy-five, and settle at nearly eighty meters per second.

He checked his location on the inertial positioning display and made a minor adjustment to the rudder,
then adjusted both the mainsail and jib to account for the new angle of attack.

"Clipper Ship Primrose out at 1400 hours, under way and on course for Charlie Sierra Four Two," he
said into the radio. The station master probably wouldn't be able to hear the formal sign-off, given the
usual overwhelming amount of static in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, Rams was always careful to
observe the formalities.

As Primrose pulled steadily away, Rams made a thorough examination of the ship. He wanted to ensure