Mental shore power, that is. Our secret weapon ashore, Valerie, informed us about the ongoing "Get Cirrus Home" contest. This was enough of a kick in the ... to get the inertia out of the system.

Conditions remained wild all afternoon and evening, and still are. I did my last weather faxes and emails after dinner (shrimps and bow-tie pasta. Excellent. We missed the chilled Chardonnay), and got Valerie's message. I had dragged Bill at his ears over the boat all day long, whispering "third place" into his ears, but he wouldn't budge. The mail did it. (Yeah, we know who the boss is, don't we?). We now have the (tiny) trysail at the main position. Greg, at the helm at this time, yelled something about getting an extra half knot. Then we mounted the second (smaller than the first) jib on the starboard pole, to now have two jibs kind of wing-on-wing. Currently 7.3 to 7.8 knots, we are sailing again!

It didn't quite go without problems, though. Bill, Dave, MP and myself were on the foredeck. With the waves still reaching up to several meters, and the extra weight on the foredeck, Cirrus likes to dive in the waves ahead and scoop up water. Lots of it. At that one moment I was sitting on deck using all my force to hoist the new jib. The wave soaked me up to my neck, and Dave and Bill also needed some dry clothes. MP was smiling broadly, as she remained reasonably dry. Some lines tangled, the sail wouldn't unfold, and so on. But eventually we were through.

We go for #3, but we need the shore power. Keep it flowing!

Aloha, Ulli

P.S with luck i may get a photo through of the new rigging.

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