Image: A new storm system just north of Comocean about to wreak havoc on the east coast.

AS expected, last night was a character tester. We were cruising along with a double reef and full jib for the early part of the evening. Winds were about 16-18 and "Hop Sing" Hoffman was in galley fixing PF CHangs from a carton for the boys. Pretty good stuff, I might add. About 11:00 the winds began to howl. We were at the foot of the predicted nor' easter forming near the Chesapeake. The circular motion was drawing winds from as much as 350 miles from the south. Where we were located, the wind was from the south west. Great for our track south. However, a little heavier air than we would have voted for (speaking of which we have no clue who won the election), came with this south west breeze. Breeze that is of 24, gusting to 30. As Norm and I called out the wind speeds from every blast, we were apparently creating excitement down below. Hop Sing jumped out of bed to the rescue. We had already pointed to bring in Jib, but more was needed. Hop Sing has inventoritis, and, having already created lines all over the boat for us to lock on to, was now inventing a way to take the pressure off the jib while we rolled it in on the furler

We went into action with the furler line around the main sheet winch and the Jib line under control to loosen it. Forty percent of the jib was rolled in and we had a line with about one thousand pounds of pressure now lock between the back of the boat and the cabin. We steered a lower course to take the pressure off, and somehow John got the furler line tied off.

The rest of the night we sailed in these winds at a 25 degree angle and 8 plus knots of speed. With no moon, plenty of lightning striking to the North of us (probably 35 miles North), and Comocean galloping across the waves, we kept a careful watch (couldn't see a thing), and tried to get some rest. After 7 hours, we pushed through the front, or the front pushed through us, and we are now sailing in clear air with 14 knots of wind. It is flattening out, just as Seth predicted the night before. BOY are we happy we moved as far south as we did in those first few days.