well it was a cloudy cold night for the first of a two race "beer can extention". the owners of "surprise" (a 50+ foot version of the lightn-up also designed by schumacher) let the crew of the lightn-up come out and crew on thier boat. we had a very fast windward leg hitting speeds close to 8knts with hardly any water ever hitting the deck (on the weather rail, my feet dangled about a bodies length off the water...as opposed to inches on the lightn-up). when we rounded the mark we were on our way to first place but as we tried to set the 2000 square foot kite we ran into all kinds of trouble. by the time we had everything sorted out we had run out of time and were nearing the finish...now a few boats behind. after the race we decided to go back up-wind enough to go back down-wind and try the whole kite thing again. well.....we did go up wind, we did try the whole kite thing again, and again there was a problem. somehow the "sock", which is designed to make hoisting and dousing easier, made it nothing but a strain and would not come all the way up and over the head of the sail......damn!!!!! ....again. the real surprise on "surprise" was as we were sailing along susan went below and then surfaced a short while later with freshly made pop-corn!! all in all it was fun to be on such a beautiful boat and i hope that steve and susan invite us back again....maybe the kite will be a little less shy the next time.