And they said it couldn't be done! Well, actually I said that I was afraid to do it. And so my red 1/2 oz spinnaker has been sitting in its bag in my vberth for ... 14 months. But today, ladies and gentlemen, in wildly tossing seas (5-7 knots on the Berkeley Circle) I threw caution to the wind and raised my spinnaker for the very first time. What does this tell you? Well, if I can do it, dear readers, you can CERTAINLY do it, too. And what have we learned from this experience? Lines will get crossed, spinnaker poles will bang against the forestay, and sails will wrap around said forestay. But prevail away! In low wind nothing bad happened and I was able to disentangle everything, the sail rose up and everything worked the way it is supposed to work. I was then able to bring the sail down and dump it into the forward hatch, I didn't fall off the boat, and I feel very confident about next time. Gulp. When the wind might be higher.