A Yacht Called Erewhon by Stuart Vaughan Read Free Book Online Page A

Mercedes was bursting. The doors were forced open, and sunlight pierced the darkened shed. Mercedes and Mac gasped as they stood in silence, looking up at the giant yacht. The varnished hull with red anti-fouled underwater sections had them dumbstruck. Mercedes kicked off her shoes and raced up the stairs to deck level. Mac followed more cautiously behind, surveying the hull with the eye of an antique dealer.
    Nothing was said as Mercedes scrambled on board to get a closer look. The smell of freshly oiled timber, glue and varnish was overwhelming. Mac followed Mercedes, then turned to Jack, looking him in the eye, ‘There’s a problem!’
    Jack’s heart sank as he mustered the voice to ask what the problem was.
    Mac looked around the shed at all the boatbuilders, who were now lining the walls like witnesses at a funeral.
    Jack cleared his throat and tried again, ‘What’s the problem, sir?’
    Mac drew a deep breath, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘as I see it, all these men standing down there are doing so without a beer in their hand, and that doesn’t seem fair after doing such a splendid job!’
    A roar went up, and the party to end all parties began.
    Mac was overwhelmed by the quality of Erewhon. As he put it: ‘A finer piece of furniture I’ve never seen.’ Mercedes was delighted. To the amusement of the builders, she ran around the hull like an excited schoolgirl. The craftsmanship was exceptional. The full-length kauri planking glistened under fifty coats of vanish, and the inside of the hull had been left unlined. The pohutukawa frames and diagonal inner skin were finished in the same high lustre, highlighting the perfect fit of the outer skins. Internally, the bulkheads were formed from selected mottled kauri, trimmed with kahikatea.
    Kegs had appeared, and the builders were giving their pride and joy the christening she deserved. An oil drum had been split lengthways in half and mounted on stands, and the scrap wood was now being put to use as a roaring fire. The smell of burning kauri and pohutukawa filled the shed and was joined soon after by the aroma of cooking sausages and steak. The apprentices were sent out to gather mussels from the legs of the slipway and, when they returned, steaming buckets soon added to the feast.
    Mercedes tried to organise the launch day with Jack, but gave up as the beer flowed and the party got louder. This was the builders’ day, and they deserved it. Grabbing a glass of beer from beside the keg, she joined the men around one of the buckets of mussels.
    The next morning, Mercedes arrived back at the shed to find several of the men lying around in a very sorry state, some still asleep. She checked the comatose ones for vital signs, and it appeared that the only casualty had been young Sam, an apprentice. In his drunken stupor, he had tried to swing from one side of the shed to the other on a tackle block suspended from the apex of the shed for the express purpose of lifting Erewhon onto its cradle for launching. His flight across the shed went well until it was time to let go of the block and latch on to the gantry on the rapidly approaching opposite wall. His timing was somewhat impaired by the quantity of alcohol he had ingested, and a clumsy dive saw him land head-first in a pile of wood shavings and sawdust. Although the rubbish pile broke his fall, he still managed to break a leg, and was whisked off to hospital.
    As the men came to, Mercedes plied them back into action with tea, brewed strong enough to be used as paint stripper if the need arose. Jack breezed in, took one look at the state of his staff and, without saying too much, stoked up the smouldering fires. ‘If we want any work out of these clowns, we’d better get some food inside them,’ he grunted to Mercedes. Before long, the leftovers were being reheated and the men were being brought back to life.
    ‘Come on, we’re putting Erewhon outside today!’ Jack bellowed.
    While the men ate their breakfast and