Great White North

Full Moon crew, working hard!

Eileen and Tammy cruising past Gasworks

Ignitor (left) shall not pass!

The Mengedoht boys having fun as usual

Full Moon crew Art “Moose” Teller, Doug “Perfect Light” Schoemaker, Eileen “Muscles” McHugh, Tammy “More Torque” Cross, Daniel “Big K” Mengedoht and skipper John “Strange Brew” Mengedoht were a bit thin on décor for the Canada Day Duck Dodge, but managed a decent start near the favored end of the line. Initially blanketed by a lot of nearby boats, Full Moon eventually found a clear lane and made good speed upwind to the AGC buoy.

Turning downwind, the mighty Equalizer was launched but the wind remained light enough to reduce the normal advantage gained by the nylon monster. Nevertheless, Full Moon got by some boats, including Fortis and good old Ignitor, which had started some 5 minutes earlier in second start! After rounding the Freeway buoy, Ignitor tried mightily to catch up in fluky light air approaching the Aurora buoy but could never quite get overlapped.

The fleet was a bit piled up at the Aurora buoy. Full Moon maintained forward progress and found a bit of breeze after going around. This came and went for the final leg upwind, though Full Moon did well in each little micro-puff. In the end, Full Moon had to settle for fourth place but was clearly in the hunt for the lead and will continue trying third start, at least for awhile.

Third in Third

At the invitation of the Race Committee, Full Moon switched this week from Start 2 (“half-fast boats”) to Start 3 (“cruising and slower boats”). Given the large number of boats in the second start, many of which are considerably faster than Full Moon, this may be appropriate, though there are also quite a few second start boats which are clearly slower!

Unfortunately, crew Randy “Languid” Olsen, Galina “Rested” Gordeeva, Michael “Lethargic” Medina, Debra “Relaxed” Ricard, Daniel “Sitting Duck” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Tired” Mengedoht got held up at the start with a wall of boats apparently unwilling to make the tack onto port for the beeline to the “Freeway” buoy. Once clear, there were a lot of boats ahead but a few were soon dispatched.

Heading to the “Aurora” buoy, Full Moon got by a few more boats and then popped up the mighty Equalizer for the long reach down the lake. As on many occasions, the Equalizer proved invaluable as Full Moon reeled in boat after boat, even passing several boats from the second start. Closing in on the AGC buoy, Full Moon eased inside a cluster of boats slowing to windward and, with full overlap rights, passed the entire group in one shot.

With the finish line in sight, the fleet looked quite a bit thinner and, sure enough, a Santana 20 was given a horn, followed soon after by a larger San Juan. As Full Moon crossed, the horn signaled yet again as Full Moon had scored the Bronze Duck for third! After the awful start, this was a very pleasant surprise.