The Nina, the Pinta and the Rancho Bernardo

"What are you making for the kids this year?" my wife asked about a
week ago as we ate breakfast.

Total blank. I was cracking walnuts to eat with chunks of Korean
pears; I'd forgotten all about making gifts for the grandkids. "Little
boats," I lied. "In fact, I'm working on them right now."

I continued to crack walnuts with the blade of my pocket-knife while I
told her about Duke Haliburton and how he'd persuaded King Charles of
Spain to out-source the transportation between Mexico and the
Philippines, back around 1665. She gave me a suspicious look.

"Seriously. Duke Haliburton convinced crazy King Charles that out-
sourcing would save him a buncha money. Then the Duke hired some
Chinese guys to sail back & forth between Manila and Acapulco..."

"Chinese guys?" Her eyebrow arched up the way it does when she's on to
me.

"Sure. It was a lot cheaper than building a galleon..."

"I suppose these Chinese guys used a Chris-Craft."

"Don't be silly." I crunched my way through a couple of chunks of
Korean pear. "Chinese guys sail junks."

"So... you're making the kids Chinese junks?"

"Right!" Whew, that was a close one.

"Three of them?"

"That's how many Duke Haliburton hired. Cost him twenty pieces of
eight a month, each. For which he charged King Charles something like
a million dollars."

That got a smile. "Things haven't changed much," she laughed. Then she
gave me that look: "I don't suppose you remember the names of those
Chinese junks."

"Ah... the Nina, the Pinta and... uh... the Rancho Bernardo."

At which point she said something rude.

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Aircraft content: I made the spars out of Sita Spruce. (pix on
bobhooversblog.blogspot.com )

-R.S.Hoover