单项选择题

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It was a sparkling July day, and a southwest wind, heady with the dank odors of tidal flat and salt marsh, whistled over the south Jersey waterway.
The little sloop departed from Cape May in mid morning, threading her way in bright sunshine northward along the waterway. She passed through a variety of drawbridges which opened promptly to our signal on the fishhorn, blown dutifully by my twelve-year-old son, Kelvin; and, following our pleasant "Thank you," each bridgekeeper would wave and then copy down the sloop’s name.
Meanwhile, Kelvin and I were tending to the numerous necessary seagoing chores which would allow us to change from engine to sail while the man at the tiller stood up on his hind legs, chart in hand, and tried to see where he was going, steering with his feet. ( This pleasant, if demanding, chore had fallen temporarily upon Robert, a cruising type of impressive experience shanghaied for this passage from a far superior vessel of his own. ) I was impatient to get sail on and thus be done with the outboard motor before lunch, as the following wind was filling the cockpit with exhaust fumes.
"Straighten her out!" Robert yelled.
But now a new problem took precedence. A strong cross current from the creek to port was sweeping the sloop broadside t6ward a dolphin (cluster of pilings) protecting the bridge.
Robert saw the emergency, jumped into the cockpit, and sweated in the mainsheet as close as he had the strength to mange; the dolphin loomed above us.
The sloop forged ahead, breasted the currents, cleared the dolphin by bare inches, and shot into the main current, now increased by the funneling effect of the draw.
We continued shooting across the draw; the sheet was let out, freeing the sail of wind, but without a jib she wouldn’t pay off.
"Get the board up, quick!"
Robert worked frantically, trying to inch up the centerboard against pressure.
Rapidly approaching a protective bulkhead of creosoted timber along the concrete pier of the bridge, we noticed that a big light was located on top of the bulkhead, about halfway through the draw, slightly set back from the bulkhead and it looked as though we were on a collision course with it.
"Board’s up," Robert grunted. Then, he looked ahead, and his voice rose an octave- "straighten her out--we’ U hit!"
Sheeted in sweat, a pain yanking at my chest, I heard the so-and-so official on the bridge bellowing in some Norse tongue, and things seemed to happen extraordinarily fast.
The bowsprit and the light drew together like the proverbial magnet to the pole.
A split second of absolute silence from. all hands, broken only by the demented figure above us--then the rugged end of the bowsprit harpooned the big lamp with a shattering crash. I felt a shock that shivered the sloop in every member and rattled my own teeth, and glass shards tinkled down upon us like hail.
"Goodness gracious," I think I said softly.
Kelvin was elate; Robert suddenly became convulsed with mirth while above us the Viking had gone berserk. Obviously the sounds of the crash had unseated his reason.
The sloop swung around until she headed upstream yet continued downstream through the draw, stern foremost. The bridgetender, his face contorted, was shouting, "Vot name is dot schlloob I repooort you!"
"Can’t hear a word he says," remarked Robert blandly, fixing Kelvin with a warning eye, "and I guess he can’t read those small numbers on pour bow, can he’
"True, Robert," I agreed weakly, "But I am shaken."
Nonetheless, I was pleased that under the stress of it all I had uttered merely a harmless "Goodness gracious"--I think.
The major difference between this story and a news report on the same incident would be______.