Chapter 16

"Hineahuone?" Grace was about to meddle.

I was off doing something to the boat and I had no idea of what was coming.

Sails ... yeah ... sails. That's what I was doing to the boat. You have to forgive me, writing down what happened is embarrassing.

The local rep for UK Sailmakers and I were out on the lawn as he and I unpacked and unrolled the lot ... and there were a lot ... of sails. The Austin's had sails from Chicago, Sturgeon Bay, Dunedin NZ, Miami, San Francisco and most of them were UK made.

Nylon, Mylar, Sunbrella, and canvas in various weights for various situations in various locations. We were going over each seam and component. Nearly all sails have reinforcing lines sewn into the edges. A little something extra to help stop a parting. And all sails have reinforcements built into the places of stress. If there's a halliard attached the place it's attached to is heavily reinforced with multiple layers of fabric and the edges are reinforced with heavier lines inside the seam to redistribute the forces.

The Head, the top corner of the sail; the Tack, the bottom forward corner of the sail; the Clew, the bottom aft corner of the sail; the Luff, the forward or leading edge of the sail; the Leech, the aft or trailing edge of the sail; and the Foot the bottom edge of the sail, are all reinforced with sewn in lines.


The Cringle, which are reinforced rings in the sail used for reefing, the Reef points; rows of cringles in the sail used to shorten the sail to reduce power and the Battens; wood or FRP strips that act as stiffeners for the sail. They help keep sail shape. All those parts of the sail are sewn on or in the main canvas and they all are subjected to wind wear. We had to look at and finger every one of the seams and mark the ones that needed repair ... there were a lot of them.

The ones that needed repair were bagged, tagged and put in the UK truck. The still good ones were bagged and tagged for washing and drying ... drying being hung in the UK loft for the winter. The K5 was going to motor to Pentwater for the winter and damn soon. We had decided that Grace would drive up and Hineahuone and I were taking the boat.

Motoring up would deplete the fuel and make pickling the engine, genset, and auxiliary genset cheaper. It's terrible to be a billionaire and pinch pennies but I did ... and so did Grace. The Anoli family were famous for it.

So ... while I was spending big bucks, Grace was conniving with a Maori Princess. I believe Setting me up is the correct phrase.

"Yes Grace?" Hineahuone responded.

"I've noticed you are spending more time in our bed than in yours," replied the love of my life.

Hineahuone started to cry.

"Why?"