The Mystery on Cobbett's Island

launch belonged to the club and was used to take members and their guests out to the boats moored in the harbor. “We’d never be caught dead in a motorboat ordinarily, but the launch is a matter of necessity.” Peter chuckled.
    “You can say that again,” chimed in Cap. “No stinkpots for us.”
    As they came alongside Peter’s sleek black boat, Trixie noticed its name, Star Fire, painted in gold letters on the stern. “What do you call your boat, Cap?” she asked.
    “Blitzen— that’s German for lightning,” he replied. “And I can hardly wait to show old Star Fire here what a real bolt of lightning she is,” he added with a wink to Peter. “Star Fire wouldn’t have a chance.”
    Peter helped Trixie and Di step into his boat from the deck of the launch. Mart followed, carefully balancing one of the lunch baskets, which he had somehow managed to get away from Jim. Peter jumped in last, with the sail bags, and shoved his boat gently away from the launch.
    “Let’s go around Jenson’s Point and then on out to the lighthouse,” Peter said to Cap. “We can tie up and have lunch if it doesn’t take too long to get there. I see we’re going to hit the incoming tide, and that’ll slow us up, so if we get hungry before we reach the lighthouse, we can eat in the boat.”
    “I’m starved right this minute,” moaned Mart, rubbing his stomach and rolling his eyes upward.
    “After the number of pancakes you ate for breakfast, you shouldn’t be hungry for days,” Diana told him.
    They waved to Cap and his party as the launch took them off to his boat, and then Trixie asked Peter what they might do to help him get ready to sail.
    “Well, before we start anything, I’ll give you the first lesson,” said Peter, looking a little embarrassed. “You see, the first rule on any boat is that no one does anything unless he is told to by the skipper. I know this sounds kind of bossy, but it avoids a lot of confusion.” He laughed as he started to pull the mainsail out of the bag. “If I yell at you like Captain Bligh, don’t think a thing about it; just obey!”
    When they had put the rudder and tiller in place and hoisted the sails, Peter took his place in the stern and told Mart to unfasten the line that held the boat to its mooring. With Peter’s deft flick of the tiller, Star Fire bore off, the sails filled, and they were away, making for the distant steeple.
    “Don’t worry if the boat heels,” said Peter, “and I don’t mean the way a dog heels behind its master. Heeling is our way of saying the boat is tipping on one side. All I have to do is let out this line, called the mainsheet, and the boat will level off and settle right down on her bottom. Heeling is a perfectly natural way for a boat to sail, so get comfortable and enjoy it.”
    “You mean the mainsheet is a rope and not a sail?” asked Mart.
    “They say there’s no such thing as a rope on a boat,” Peter informed him, “only lines, guys, sheets, and halyards.”
    Cap was also under sail by now, and the two boats went out of the harbor with a good breeze blowing out of the west.
    “See that red buoy up ahead?” asked Peter when they had left the clubhouse quite a distance behind. “That’s the nun I was telling you about the day we found the chart. It’s N two. When you leave a harbor, you always sail by the red buoy so that it’s on your left side, or as we say, to port. When you return, you leave it on your right, or starboard, side.”
    “Whew! There’s more to sailing than meets the eye,” said Trixie, who had been listening intently to Peter’s explanation.
    “You can never learn all there is to know about sailing if you live to be a hundred,” continued Peter. “Every time I go out, it seems the conditions of wind or tide or weather are different. That’s what makes it such a great sport. It’s just you and your boat, against nature.”
    “Say, Peter, that red nun we just passed doesn’t show up on Ed’s chart,” Trixie said as she studied the map spread out on her knees.
    “Could be it wasn’t there in those days,” Peter speculated. “Channels do shift, especially if there are heavy storms that change the shoreline.” He looked behind him and pointed out a spit of land jutting out from the shore. “That’s Jenson’s Point over there,” he commented.
    “Aren’t we going there before we go to the lighthouse?” Trixie asked, looking in the direction he was pointing.
    “Sure thing,” Peter