and sometimes boats were so badly damaged that they had to be dragged back to the finish line by a team of horses.
The Royal George won the first race, just as Tommy had predicted. In the second race the Marinion placed third, but in the last heat of the day it won and the crew collected a five-dollar prize from a purse that had been created by all the entrants contributing a dollar each.
After the races, we went out for a few more laps around the bay so I could practise standing on the runner beam. I was getting better; I only fell off once. Before we knew it we could hear the clock bells in the New City Hall ringing 4:30 p.m. Darkness came early to Toronto in December. With the sun setting in the west, we sailed back to the York Street anchorage, which was again crowded with boats. During the weekdays, less than ten boats were parked here. Most belonged to professional ice taxi drivers who made their living transporting people to and from the different islands. On the weekends as many as fifty boats crowded the ice. The majority of the weekend skippers were amateurs in clunky homemade boats, but there were also rich people with fancy custom-made craft.
When the iceboat sailors weren’t out on the ice, they sat on wooden buckets and packing crates around open campfires — millionaires rubbing shoulders with common working men. They exchanged sailing stories, relived past races, and told jokes, mostly about sailing and races. Blackened iron kettles full of melted snow continuously hissed over the fire for tea, and from a fifty-pound burlap bag sailors threw unpeeled potatoes onto the coals, which they turned with long sticks until the coals were completely black. Each boat had a small store of tea bags and tin cups, and anyone could help themselves to the kettle water or a hot potato.
Like most old hands, Tommy and Ed could pick a potato right out of the fire and hold it in their bare fingers. The first time I tried it I burned myself.
“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” I gasped, letting the spud land with a hiss on the snow. This earned me a loud burst of laughter from the rest of the men.
“Here, laddie,” a gruff old man said, handing me a long spruce stick he had been whittling for kindling. I stuck it in the spud and lifted it out of the snow. Steam poured off the potato, but it quickly cooled until I thought it was safe to take a bite.
“Hot! Hot!” I cried, burning my mouth. But after a full day of sailing, the spud tasted wonderful — even the burnt parts.
“Don’t forget the pepper and salt,” Ed said, producing two tiny shakers from his coat pocket.
I found an empty nail barrel and sat on it crosswise.
“How did you boys do for fares today?” a fuzzy-jawed young captain asked Tommy.
“Two one-way island runs and one round-theharbour tour,” Tommy replied.
“We had a good one,” another skipper said. “Five young lasses from the nursing school. Lots of ankle.”
A third captain jabbed his colleague’s ribs hard. “Tender lugs about, Simon. Watch your language.”
I blushed not from the comment but from the fact that some of these men obviously thought of me as a child.
“So who’s your new man there, Captain McDonell?” a silver-haired man in his forties asked Tommy.
“Fred, this is Bertie McCross,” Tommy said. “Bertie, this is Fred Phelan.”
Both Fred and I half stood so we could shake hands. As someone at another campfire started playing an accordion, Ed filled me in on who was sitting around our circle tonight.
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