As we prepare to set sail in a week, we are scratching our heads wondering how we are going to get all this stuff onto our mean lean sailing machine Tigerlily. Preparations started 10 months ago when Purnell and I decided that we would "go for it" and join the ARC Europe Sailing Rally from Portsmouth, VA to Lagos, Portugal. We first needed to make Tigerlily ready for a smooth trans-Atlantic voyage. She is already a very seaworthy boat so most of what we did was for our own comfort: we added a transformer so we could plug into shore power in Europe, solar panels to recharge our batteries without running the engine, a wind-vane which will steer the boat without using electricity, and that was just phase one. As for sails, we want to get the most of whatever wind we are presented with so we now have a staysail for heavy wind and a gennaker (an asymmetric spinnaker), the later just came in the mail yesterday! Well that's it for now because we are in crunch time getting last minute preparations for our anticipated April 20th Annapolis departure.