:D

Well, I don't plan on having any more wives. Mrs. Gimwinkle is in her fifties and from China.

The sloop I have now is a bit smaller than the first one I had. Gimwinkle One (not her real name) was a 35 foot sloop that was ugly as could be and seriously badly done interior which I pull everything out and did it all again. (Yeah, it was a labor of love.) One year, I wanted to work on her but the work lasted well into the summer so I bought a small 25 footer just to get back out on the water. Later, I sold her and kept Gimwinkle One for quite a few years. If there ever was a weather attempt at killing me, Gimwinkle One was there to prevent it. She wasn't that fast, but in a stiff wind, there was nobody out there that could catch us.

The latest, Gimwinkle Three (ha, I just thought of it, three wives, three sailboats!) Anyway, Gimwinkle Three is just the opposite of Gimwinkle One. She is smaller, designed for beauty, looks tough but she's unbelievably faster. I'm not a club racer and, rarely, want to just sail in a race. But, there was this 33 footer that I know the captain of. He's an asshole, think's he's god's gift to boating. I saw him out under sail one weekend in winds that were perfect for Gimwinkle Three. Asshole One was about a mile or so further at sea on a reach south. Within an hour, we were port to starboard and I was stealing his wind. Gimwinkle Three's theoretical hull speed is 7.1 knots. A 33 foot LOA will have (from what I could see) an LWL of about 31 feet. The theoretical hull speed of Asshole One is about 7.5 knots. We both have been in the same marina for years so I know he is a good sailor. Yet, there we were, Gimwinkle Three slowly creeping south, out ahead of a very red-faced (an cussing at his crew) Asshole One. I don't know (I'm not a club racer) if sailing a race up wind of him was race-legal, but I sure felt nice all afternoon. Like I said, the winds that day were perfect for Gimwinkle Three.

Ah.... there you go! Getting me to yammer off topic.

Sorry guys!