I Need My Yacht by Friday: True Tales from the Boat Repair Yard

A recent immigrant to Canada, I had completed an apprenticeship as a shipwright and found a good-paying job in the shipyard, which allowed me to buy a three-bedroom house for my growing family. Three weeks before Christmas, the foreman at the shipyard gave me one hour's notice before laying me off. Doing odd jobs helped pay the mortgage - then I decided to go into business repairing boats: I rented a large warehouse, brought a chair from home, made a desk from a door and bought a brown manila envelope to put receipts in. I Need My Yacht by Friday, is the story of what happened next.