Here's Chip adjusting our 3rd crewman - the windvane Autopilot. It steers the boat most of the time. It maintains a constant angle to the wind and consumes no power. What we should have been doing here is REEFING THE MAIN! Note the harnesses. We are always tethered to the boat after dark, or if we are alone in the cockpit. If we fall overboard, we can be dragged along like a lure until somebody notices that the boat has slowed down or we get eaten. Better than floating around in the Atlantic in the middle of the night, though. We left Charleston yesterday with very favorable winds, which promptly died. We have been plodding along out here for the past 30 hours or so, cursing and fuming. We had large waves, and no wind, which is a bad combination, as you just get thrown around with not much forward progress. We finally got a fair wind after dark, which turned into a good wind, then an excellent wind, then way too much wind. By the time we got around to reducing sail, we were in a real blow. We managed to get the genoa down and the mainsail double reefed. We finally brought down the main and are sailing the last 20 or so miles with staysail alone. We'll get into Beaufort well after midnight, where we'll anchor, before proceeding up the ICW for awhile. Your loyal correspondent, Mike