The Sailmaker – Part 1: Torn Canvas

The mainsail had torn from luff to leech, and Finn was ready to cry.

He stood in the sailmaker's loft on the Hobart waterfront with a bundle of ripped white canvas in his arms. It was Tuesday. The race to Hobart began on Saturday. He was thirty-two, a yacht skipper, sunburnt and sleepless, in a salt-stiff windbreaker.

"I can mend it," said the sailmaker.

"By Friday?"

"By Friday."

"Are you sure?"

"Stop pacing."

Finn stopped. The man behind the long bench was thirty-five, big-shouldered, in a canvas apron and a leather palm strapped round his hand, with weathered skin, a short grey-brown beard and calm blue eyes. Lachlan. The loft smelled of tar, beeswax and sun-dried cloth. Sunlight fell in dusty bars through the high windows. Sails hung from the rafters like sleeping ghosts.

Lachlan spread the torn sail on the floor and knelt beside it, tracing the rip with a thumb. "She's old. But she's good. We'll give her another ten years."

"You talk to it."

"Everyone does, in here." He glanced up, amused. "Pass me the needle."

For three days Finn hung around the loft, unable to leave. He held the end of the sail. He fetched tea. He watched Lachlan's hands move: sail needle, waxed thread, palm, push. The long seam grew like a line of stitches in skin. Lachlan didn't mind the company. He told stories of old races, big storms, the ships that had gone down off the Cape. His voice was low and unhurried.

"Can I ask you something?" said Finn, on the third evening.

"Yes."

"Why sails?"

"Because they carry people home," said Lachlan.

Finn's throat tightened. He found he couldn't answer.

"Green?" he managed, a light on a mast.

"Green," said Lachlan, with a slow smile. "Very green. Hold the corner."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Fair Wind.