Floaters [antikvár]

PROLOGUE On December 7, exactly fifty-three years after the day that lives in infamy, a 75-foot boat that cost nearly as much as some of those lost in the Pearl Harbor raid was photographed just after it fell from its cradle fifteen feet above the launching dock. The keel of the boat, like all of the closely guarded, supersecret keels of the America's Cup sailing yachts, was driven up through the deck like a torpedo. It was to have been the maiden launching of this boat, called France 2 by the French yachting syndicate. The team members were so beside themselves that one of the sailors actually started screaming, "Sacré bleu! Sacré bleu!" causing a man who was snapping pictures to say to his partner, "I thought they only said that in P/«^ Panther movies." The irony of the boat being trashed on Pearl Harbor day wasn't lost on the partner, who said, "This time around nobody can blame it on the banzai boys. They're too busy with the Kiwis for sneak attacks." By that he meant that in a sport notorious for espionage. Team Nippon had its hands full with America's Cup racing and Cup politics, confronted as it was by two hot boats in the New Zealand syndicate as well as the Kiwis' accusations that the Japanese had violated the two-boat limit with their added JPN-30 hull. Moreover, Team Nippon had to worry about a formidable foe in oneAustralia, although the other Australian challenger didn't scare anybody, nor did the Spanish. Nor any longer did the French, now that they were gawking at Waterloo on Mission Bay.