An elaborate proposal involving a sailboat won this year’s Ultimate Proposal Contest. The San Diego couple was one among dozens of other couples who submitted their stories to the JIC-sponsored contest and was chosen as the winner by those who voted via JIC’s website.

Austin Dias proposed to his girlfriend Jessica Williams by renting a sailboat that had the words “Marry Me” written on the sail:

“I worked with a friend from a local sail-making company to put ‘Marry Me?’ on the spinnaker sail. Meanwhile, I was also contacting some of my best buddies to help crew the boat on this special mission. I created a plan for them that had detailed locations for the proposal that depended upon the day’s wind direction and even included a ‘no wind’ plan that involved putting the sail up and motoring backwards to make the spinnaker fly!

[…]

Finally, after what felt like the longest day of my life, I picked up Jess and headed down to the bay. I asked her if we could go on a walk and she agreed that it would be nice. “What is that boat doing?!” she said… “Oh I don’t know, let’s watch,” I replied. The big white spinnaker sail flew up and in large red letters she read, “Marry Me?” She turned around to find me on one knee and the ring sparkling in the sunset. She cried with excitement and said, “YES, YES, YES!”

The lucky couple won a seven-night Caribbean cruise and a pair of platinum and diamond weddings bands from Maevona. You can check out proposal stories from the other nine finalists here.