Hazy Daze

And we're off! Speedy Scat is in the foreground with Full Moon in front.

Full Moon went a little conservative for the start of the Tropical Night Duck Dodge, opting to approach the line on starboard tack instead of the favored port tack, but still enjoyed a decent start. Crew Randy “Vitamin R” Olsen, Chuck “Boomer” Weldy, Judy “Chips” Tiffany, Dave “Footballer” Pulsifer, Daniel “Last Race” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Cheap Leis” Mengedoht had a straight shot to the Freeway buoy (in the usual converging traffic), followed by heading to the “beach” at Gasworks and then a tack toward the Aurora buoy.

Tropical crew of Full Moon.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to lay the Aurora buoy without more tacking and Full Moon ended up tacking ahead of a Catalina and just to windward of Invader (T-bird), the result being a Full Moon sandwich to squeak around the buoy. Once around, the Equalizer was soon hoisted for speeds up to 6.13 knots on a nice long beam reach. The Equalizer came down cleanly to round the AGC buoy and then it was time to head for the floating “island” serving as the Chandler’s Cove buoy.

Heart Attack gets their beers at the "island."

The J80 Heart Attack was inexplicably slow on approach to the island so Full Moon went wide on an attempted pass. Heart Attack then found some speed to pull clear ahead and Full Moon hardened up so as to go just behind Heart Attack to grab a few free beers from the island, while letting the sails luff a bit to ensure we didn’t bump Heart Attack from behind. Unfortunately, this move apparently messed up the approach from behind by the Catalina 30 Necessary Evil, her skipper having a few unkind words. Like it or not, Full Moon was obligated not to run into Heart Attack from behind and Necessary Evil had the same obligation toward Full Moon whether beer was able to be obtained or not…

Wildfires in Canada and Eastern Washington provided a smoky haze.

The long upwind leg north required only two tacks to nicely lay the Freeway buoy before again heading to the Gasworks Park bulkhead. Two more tacks brought Full Moon to the Aurora buoy, this time with no traffic to worry about. The wind had dropped quite a bit by this time and the spinnaker reach/run was a lot slower. On approach to the AGC buoy, the wind dropped and then shifted to the NE, leaving Full Moon on the wrong gybe as we raised the jib and dropped the Equalizer. This allowed Necessary Evil to get by, sailing inside Full Moon at the buoy.

Selchie had a bigger crew than normal but were still very hard to beat!

There were a lot of boats milling about the island in light air and they usually run out of beer during the first lap so Full Moon elected to stay clear instead of tacking a few times for a beer run. This paid off handsomely, allowing Full Moon to pass not only Necessary Evil but also Tonic (Peterson 34) and Selchie (T-bird) to finish in what we believe was fifth place.

Briefly Glorious

The stars aligned for the Sock Hop Duck Dodge and Full Moon nailed the start near the favored Committee Boat end of the line. Crew Randy “Rainier” Olsen, Dave “Bodi” Pulsifer, Judy “Baba Ganoush” Tiffany, Katie “Fremont” Freels, Daniel “Perfect Pack” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Guido” Mengedoht were neck and neck with the Ranger 33 Seoladh until they faded back to dodge a drifting power boat. Speedy Scat tacked for the Westlake side of the lake but the wind proved better in the middle and Full Moon rounded the AGC buoy solidly in first place!

The Equalizer was soon launched for the long leg north, the apparent wind clocking from a beam reach to nearly dead downwind. It was a bit scary to thread through traffic on port gybe and needing to yield to every boat coming our way but Full Moon made it safely to the Freeway buoy for a clean drop and still in first place. The SSW wind direction made for a straight shot to the Aurora buoy but, unfortunately, the Norlin 34 Runaway managed to slip past before rounding.

Returning upwind, Scat and the Peterson 34 Tonic also managed to get by. However, Full Moon again kept to the middle of the lake, holding off on tacking to the west, and this paid off as the boats converged closely together to round the AGC buoy. Under spinnaker, Full Moon initially passed Runaway to move into third place but this didn’t last.

After another clean drop at the Freeway buoy, it was on to the Aurora buoy – but it had moved to the north! On approach, a couple of boats were coming at the buoy on starboard tack for some reason, though moving quite slowly. Full Moon took the stern of both boats (better safe than sorry) but a J22 and the J24 Monomoy cut between the starboard tackers in order to pass Full Moon. On the final leg, Full Moon could not quite overtake the two J-boats and had to settle for sixth place but it was still a terrific race and amazing to be first for a while. With all boats ahead save the J22 being inherently faster boats, this was a great finish!