How to Catch a Cat Read Online Free

the bay’s natural amphitheater.
    Each race started with a high-speed launch on the bay’s west end heading toward the Golden Gate, followed by a blitz back along the San Francisco shoreline toward the Bay Bridge. Sharp tacking skills were required to flip the boats around at the east side of the course, just south of Alcatraz. The teams then charged once more across the length of the course, before taking a last leg along the waterfront and a final tacking pivot at the eastern boundary. From there, it was a short sprint into the finish, near the event pavilion off the Embarcadero.
    From start to finish, no race could exceed a preset forty-minute time limit. In the sixteen successful heats that had been completed over the course of the last two weeks, most of the races had taken less than twenty-five minutes.
    The head-to-head battles had included several heart-stopping down-to-the-wire finishes, leaving fans breathless and clamoring for more.
    The racing boats, too, had been souped up for mass appeal. The craft designed for this year’s regatta were much faster than any that had ever faced off in the competition.
    The sailboats were specially built catamarans with forty-meter-high sails that balanced on a pair of streamlined canoe-shaped hulls. The lightweight contraptions were built for speed, flashing across the bay at previously unheard-of velocities. On tight turns or in heavy gusts, one or even both of the hulls lifted completely out of the water. In this elevated hydrofoiling posture, the pronged rudders and lone daggerboard that extended from the bottom of the craft were all that kept it stabilized on the water.
    The distinctive boats could be spotted from almost every viewing angle in and around the bay. From Coit Tower to the Marina Green, the enormous triangular-shaped sails moved like chess pieces as they circled the buoys that demarcated the race route. Of course, the swooping helicopters hovering in the air just above the craft were also hard to miss.
    Sailing purists had railed against the Baron’s changes, decrying the speedy course, the flashy merchandizing, and the dangerously unstable new boats.
    But as each day of racing progressed, the event drew increasing numbers of spectators. Now, with the competition tied up and everything riding on the results of the final segment, the whole city was mesmerized.
    While the Baron desperately wanted to win, the regatta was already a phenomenal success.
    He could hardly contain his excitement.
    “Let’s introduce the two teams and get them out there on the water!”

Chapter 4
    THERE, AMONG THE SPECTATORS
     
    OSCAR GRIMACED AT the scene on the stage.
    He didn’t have anything against the Baron—or rather, that wasn’t the primary reason for his negative reaction. Oscar could think of several worthy causes that would have been a better use of the Baron’s money than some snooty sailboating competition.
    Nor was his objection directed to the event’s nautical theme. He liked boats well enough—just not these flashy, flimsy contraptions that were zooming around the bay. He preferred a far more solid craft, one that could brave the waves of the Pacific on a long-haul voyage.
    It was the brazen politicization of the event that had drawn Oscar’s scorn.
    The Baron had just introduced San Francisco’s interim mayor. After an overzealous handshake with the Baron, Mayor Montgomery Carmichael had taken control of the podium and was now in the midst of lengthy self-promoting remarks (to which no one was listening).
    Perhaps noting the widespread yawns and overall boredom in the crowd, the Baron cut in and, with difficulty, ushered Monty to the rear of the stage.
    “For that act of mercy, Baron, I’ve upped your standing,” Oscar muttered under his breath.
    While the mayor was being (somewhat forcibly) repositioned, the camera widened its lens and turned its focus to the crowd.
    Near the far right side of the stage, Oscar spied his niece standing next to a green