Sunday was like any other sunday Freddie could remember for a number of years. He and the boys, his squadron of flying fish, had been out celebrating yet another successful Saturday afternoon display in front of admiring middle aged flying fish and adoring young flying fish or "freshers" as the boys liked to call the groupie girl hangerson. Freddie had found the transition from warrior flying fish to civilian flying fish tough when peace had finally been agreed between the North and the South following the Great Flying Fish War. But the leader of the North, a fish called Tony, had a keen understanding of the benefits of PR and team morale and asked Freddie to keep his crack fighter squadron together and take warrior flying to the waterways of his kingdom in celebration of the feats of bravery performed by the flying fish squadrons in the Great War. Freddie, his wing man Iceman and the rest of the squadron had built up such a reputation for their daring low level flying and acrobatic feats at high speed that they were booked up weekends ahead. And Sundays were the day that Freddie and Iceman tried out the new manoeuvres which the squadron always tried to include to keep their act fresh. This Sunday Freddie was once again trying to perfect the loop the loop. Given his wing configuration (which meant stalling in the vertical almost impossible to avoid), this was a death defying trick which required the right wave shape, huge fin strength for extra lift and above all courage. The waves were right, the first two or three attempts had been encouraging and Iceman had suggested a few tweaks to his fin positioning to get the launch just right. Freddie turned back to run with the waves in search of the perfect launch shape....The saloon of Satori was peaceful. Rachmaninov was on the ipod, Matthew was in the galley, Nick, Patrick and Andrew were reading round the saloon table. The boat was moving with its ususal mixture of groans and squeaks in keeping with the 15 knots of breeze and 8 knots of boat speed and then a sound like a radio operated plane interrupted the tranquil scene and BANG there was Freddie lying flat on his back nexrt to Patrick on the saloon sofa! .......Freddie's last flight had been over a guard rail approximately 7 feet above waterlevel, add on a further 2 feet for the roof of the saloon plus a bit more for the heeling of the boat and then apply the probability of all that with the open hatch on the saloon roof being Freddie's landing point! Any other place and Freddie would have been clean away. Of all the bars in all the world... Crew reactions are telling. Patrick could hardly move for laughter, Nick was worried that Allison would be angry about the mess on the new leather sofa covers and picked off every individual scale, Narni meanwhile immediately identified live fishing bait as the major upside. Dont think you have to worry about his commercial future, Mr Norman!
Andrew Haining