Claire and I resolved early on to prevent any unforeseen disasters; we worked for hours replacing leather buckles with velcro fastenings and shoelaces with elasticated flaps.
Relatively cheap techniques now minimise the damage: using top-quality roof fastenings, for example.
They remember the fate of western agents, in the Soviet Union after the second world war, whose painstakingly forged identity documents had a fatal flaw: they used stainless steel staples, rather than the soft iron fastenings found in authentic Soviet documents.
As leaders met, three American companies and a union, no doubt encouraged by the tyre tariffs, accused Chinese and Indonesian companies of "dumping" paper (selling below cost or below home market price), and Nucor accused Chinese and Taiwanese exporters of bolts, screws and other fastenings of illegal subsidies as well as dumping.
His tiny storm-tossed boat, for example, becomes "a speck of substance before the driving terrors of the tempest"; and the men's sleep, after long and anxious watching, becomes so sound that "no dreams could break the strong fastenings of forgetfulness in which the mind was then locked up".
The lapstrake planking method appears to have reached its final form in northern Europe, where iron fastenings were used.
Originally, parts were joined by screw fastenings, but a whole range of fittings has been devised to achieve the same result more easily and with more precision.
Plank construction did not become common in Europe until metal fastenings were procurable, although pegged construction was probably used in an early stage of evolution.
The use of metal fastenings throughout the hull did not become common, apparently, until about the 9th century in northern Europe.
An example from Persia from the 7th century bc has fastenings in the form of a human hand and is decorated with two lions placed head to tail.
By the 14th century buttons were worn as ornaments and fastenings from the elbow to the wrist and from the neckline to the waist.
