Team Spirit

Full Moon crew Randy “Cheap Streaming” Olsen, Dave “Pink Drinks” Pulsifer, Judy “Sleepy” Tiffany, Anne “Short Day” Gustavson, Daniel “Tunes” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Copycat” Mengedoht attempted to emulate Scat’s successful strategy for first start but found that a bunch of boats had the same idea, crowding tightly together right next to the Committee Boat. One boat lightly contacted the dinghy hung from the Committee Boat and a few had gentle side-to-side collisions, but Full Moon emerged unscathed, though suffering from bad air from all the surrounding boats.

Once boats dispersed a bit, Full Moon had a nice line to the Freeway buoy, though Necessary Evil (Catalina 30) managed to slowly work ahead to windward. (Sometimes size does matter!) Full Moon then continued toward Gasworks until traffic dictated a tack, then went most of the way across the lake before tacking again to head toward the Aurora buoy.

Full Moon rounded the buoy a behind Necessary Evil and a J30 and began to gain significantly once the Equalizer was hoisted. While just ahead of the J30 for a while, the J30 pulled back ahead before rounding the AGC buoy in light air.

Nothing changed for the final upwind leg to the finish, Full Moon being somewhere in the top ten as best we can tell. Not bad with all the fast boats in second start.

Decade of Confusion

The Seattle skyline is always awesome from the lake.

Full Moon crew Randy “Low Side” Olsen, Michael “Bundle Up” Medina, Marcelle “Spider Legs” Van Houten, Ben “Sail Marketing” Spicer, Daniel “Just Visiting” Mengedoht, and skipper John “6.5 Decades” Mengedoht opted to try second start for the Decades Night Duck Dodge in hopes of reduced traffic. The plan was a port tack start near, but not at, the Committee Boat and this happened – but only by tacking late and not having full speed at the start. Still, Full Moon got moving pretty well after clearing a little traffic and ended up with nearly a rhumb line approach to the Freeway buoy.

Daniel, Randy and Ben with different things on their minds.

After sailing nearly to the Gasworks shore, Full Moon ended up only needing a couple of tacks to make the Aurora buoy. Unfortunately, the Equalizer halyard and jib halyard got fouled, making for a slow hoist. With the Equalizer powered up, Full Moon then pulled ahead of all boats behind and made significant gains on the boats ahead, apart from a zippy Ultimate 20 that was nearly planing down the lake under asymmetric spinnaker.

Only a few of the many boats behind Full Moon during the final leg.

The Equalizer had to come down before the jib could go back up due to the halyard mess, which slowed Full Moon down a bit. Then the wind dropped to next to nothing approaching the AGC buoy, making for a painful slow rounding.

Michael is snug and warm in the sunset glow.

The final leg was a straight and fairly speedy shot to the finish line once the wind filled back in. Full Moon was nowhere near the second start leaders but stayed ahead of a number of fast boats all the same and was probably somewhere in the middle of the fleet. The sunset was gorgeous if way too early as the days get shorter. Only two more races, noooo!!!!

One more sunset picture...

Beads, Not Boobs

Full Moon crew Michael “Sweet” Medina, Marcelle “Screen Time” van Houten, Doug “Halyards” Schoemaker, Chad “Bike Builder” Harnish, and skipper John “Hard To Pass” Mengedoht got a better start for the Mardi Gras Duck Dodge but still wasn’t quite up with the leaders at the favored end of the line. I’d blame the wind angle (port tack has been necessary to cross the starting line for all three races thus far) but it’s really on the skipper not wanting to risk contact.

Marcelle, Doug, John, and Chad enjoying another awesome evening.

The wind was better toward the middle of the lake and Full Moon soon tacked out, leaving a beautiful big Tartan 3800 well behind (size is good, mass not so much). The next tack was right on the layline for the Freeway buoy. Full Moon then opted to keep going toward Gasworks before tacking west. A few more tacks were necessary to reach the Aurora buoy but a nice approach on starboard left ample time to set up the spinnaker, which then went up very smoothly.

Michael supervises as John stares at the Equalizer.

At that point, Full Moon should have been well ahead of the single-handed Ranger 22 Anakena but we were astounded to watch as the skipper abandoned the tiller to hoist a spinnaker! Way to go, dude! Fortunately, the Equalizer performed its usual magic and Full Moon quickly pulled ahead and proceeded to pass quite a few boats on the way to the AGC buoy, including a big Catalina 38 Tranquilitee (their spelling, not mine!).

Full Moon is on the left, the crew enjoying the post-race sunset.

The spinnaker drop went smoothly and it was on to the final upwind leg, hoping to keep ahead of Tranquilitee and maybe catch the relatively large Krystal. We achieved the first goal, not the second, but also had to contend with a hard-charging J22 coming up from behind. Full Moon doesn’t seem her normal self, upwind on port tack, but we still prevailed over the J-Boat. Whew!