Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Sunny Sunday!

Full Moon can't really compete with a Mumm 30!
Full Moon returned to racing action on sunny Sunday for Goosebump Race No. 2. Crew Randy “Fast Pack” Olsen, Chuck “RV” Weldy, Erin “In and Out” Osberg, Alicia “Rookie” Castagno, and skipper John “Old Stories” Mengedoht managed a good start in very light wind but were soon overmatched by most of the first start fleet. Playing the shifts and trying to stay in the limited zones of decent wind, Full Moon still did reasonably well on the upwind leg to the AGC buoy.

Alicia gets her first taste of sailboat racing.
Turning downwind, the mighty Equalizer was launched to good effect as Full Moon found a nice lane of solid breeze up the center of the lake, passing several large boats parked near the Eastlake shore. The T-bird Havoc threatened from behind but was held off to the Freeway buoy where they got past by virtue of Full Moon’s fairly conservative spinnaker drop.

The Equalizer on the first downwind run. Old and tired but still effective!
The breeze filled in a bit for the leg to the Aurora buoy and the next leg south to start the second lap, where speedy Scat finally got past. Unfortunately, the second downwind run was diminished by hoisting the Equalizer sideways, which really doesn’t work well! In the end, Full Moon was either dead last or close to it but it was a gorgeous day and there was no particular expectation to do well in the first start fleet anyway. With only Scat and two T-birds out of our normal competition in first start, Full Moon may well request to try second start next week!

The Equalizer does not do sideways well...

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Football vs. Sailing

Full Moon skipped the first Goosebump race, the skipper and crew favoring warm and dry playoff football on TV over a wet afternoon on the water. Given the Seahawk loss, perhaps we should have sailed! On the other hand, with the race committee switching over to Duck Dodge style scoring (top three boats only), there is less motivation to sail in stinky weather as Full Moon has little hope of placing in the top three in any given Goosebump race. Under the previous system, which scored all boats, Full Moon could still do well for the series, having placed second overall a couple of years ago. Not that winning is the only reason to race, of course!