Free Gifts!

A longish entry ensues. Cut to the penultimate paragraph should you want to make haste to the chase.
The promotions staff in the Experience Mistral Project's marketing department has been pushing to "incentivize" (their term) the Mistral volunteer effort but have faced resistence from the Department of Cultural Standards, a backroom committee that aims to preserve the Mistral ethos of volunteerism and non-commercial camaraderie. As the DCS argument goes, incentivizing the volunteer effort would compromise the integrity of the program and lead to complaints of "selling out" (their term).
Promotions countered that incentives would be a sign of the Project maturing, and we would see this when we heard complaints like this: "Mistral is just not the same now that you can't scrape and varnish all winter and not even go sailing."
The promotions argument has carried the day in this evening's marathon meeting of the Executive Committee, which is all so much bureaucratic hoopla save for one thing -- the advent of free Mistral stuff!
The top volunteers in this week's haulout extravaganza, judged by hours spent and general attitude, will receive cool Mistral crap not unlike the maritime geegaws garnishing the dash of the Mistral support vehicle, pictured above. Stay tuned for word on the upcoming Mistral t-shirt promotion!
Meanwhile, the haulout continues. Today saw sanding of the topsides and priming of the patched spots. Tomorrow will be an all-hands effort of prepping the bottom for speed and hard bottom paint. Topside painting is also possible. The skipper will be there early, like, 8 a.m., and will offer lots of leadership in anything needed until 2 p.m., when he has to drive his daughter to soccer.