“All I hope, Stan, is that we’ve figured our sail area and center of that area correctly, or we’ll have a lemon of a boat on our hands! Sheets of whistling zinc and tons of paper plates—I’m nervous about that!”
“With the Marconi rig, John, there is one thing—we’ll have to try her out and tinker with the set of the stays until the sails draw right. And we’ve got to keep an eye on those stays if it begins to blow up hard. But we’ll be thankful for the ease of reefing in a blow!”
They set sail from the town wharf before supper time, and trouble began at once! The boat kept carrying a “wet nose” with every puff of wind. And at the same time she was hard to handle with that wheel.
They shifted a little of the pigiron ballast she carried under her cabin floor boards, moving it a few feet further aft, and after a few adjustments to tip the mast back a few inches, giving it a hint of rake, she began to act with the normal airs of a good yacht. An hour of sailing and minor adjustments now brought things right, and Stan was enthusiastic at the way the Staghound tore along through the water of Zenith Harbor.
They were returning to their anchorage for the night when John gave an exclamation of warning.
“Duck, Stan! The Sea Hawk!”
Sure enough, standing round Zenith Light was the white-hulled Sea Hawk which they had seen in Black Cove. It was moving fast, as if its owner had business to attend to, and Stan whistled nervously.
“Get into a blue sweater and a white cap, John,” Stan ordered, “and bring up my old brown cap!”
By the time the Sea Hawk was closing up, the two boys could not have been recognized as the boys of Black Cove even if the men aboard the yacht had suspected who they were. Seated as they were in the cockpit, too, their physical differences, John being so tall and Stanley just ordinary in height, were not to be compared, and that helped to hide their identities.
“I’d give a good shirt to know what part the Sea Hawk is playing in Nevens’ life,” said Stan. “She’s a beauty, though, and reputed extremely fast.”