Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht and and she's not afraid to use it. She's a globe-trotting civil engineer with swath of failed multi-national affairs in her jet stream. Plying the San Francisco waterfront, trolling for triceps, her attention is snagged by a parade of passing yachts--especially their predominantly male skippers--and experiences a champagne-induced epiphany: If she had a boat, she could get a man. In spite of a spectacular ignorance of all things nautical, Hetta buys her dream boat, but shadowy stalker, an inconvenient body, and Hetta's own self-destructive foibles, give a whole new meaning to the phrase "sink or swim "