Remember the Stars and Stripes from the America’s Cup in the late 1980s? We had the opportunity to ‘race’ against that boat while on an excursion in St. Maarten during our first port visit (April 9). Julie was chosen as the Captain of our team, which basically meant she did one round of “Rock-Paper-Scissors” against the other team captain to determine who got to choose their boat. It was clear the other Captain was not familiar with the game (or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing) as she slow-rolled and delayed her choice until after Julie already had chosen “Scissors”; so Julie captained the Canadian vessel, “True North IV”. Our group was each assigned a job and we quickly took our positions aboard the boat. As the captain, Julie’s job was to encourage the crew during the midway portion of the race. Joe was a back grinder, which required very little effort and provided a nice view from the stern of the primary grinders working very hard. Due to Julie’s profanity filled pep talk (okay, not really, she as very polite) and taking over a primary grinder position, the True North IV pulled away during the last leg of the race and we easily won. This experience greatly exceeded our expectations. The 3-man crew did an exceptional job explaining the boat, the race and our individual jobs. It also helped that it was a very windy day and we were rocking and rolling at a top rate. We would highly recommend this experience for anyone to enjoy.