"The whole nine yards"

@Piper I think I like @ElwoodBlues 's explanation better

@DrWatson Well, okay then. I've read or heard multiple hypothesis about the actual source of...inspiration for the expression, too. The meaning of it has always been very clear, to me anyway. The actual origin, not so much. The mystery is still not solved with any certainty.

@Piper I agree. And I suppose someone should fact-check the actual areas of those sails, but I am not that interested! :)

@DrWatson I was never interested in the actual yardage of sails either, even those times when getting them up or down was a really big deal.

@Piper So you've gone sailing? Cool. On the ocean? My father-in-law had a wooden sailboat that he used on the Great Lakes.

@DrWatson I sailed from the Outer Banks to Florida. Some of of that long, rather nightmarish trip was at sea, and much of it was on The Intracoastal Waterway. The boat was...is a 59 foot ferro-cement hulled sailing vessel with a diesel engine. That trip could be described as a comedy of errors. So much so, that the older gentleman who agreed to come along submitted an article to Sail magazine about it.

The trip to Key West was at least a better, as far as things going wrong.

@Piper I am very impressed.