Fun With The J-Boats

The wind was highly unusual for the Commodore’s Ball Duck Dodge, coming out of the southeast at the start. Full Moon crew Michael “Birthday Suit” Medina, Chad “Girly Bag” Harnish, Rob “Rookie” Lane, Daniel “No Pack” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Hard To Pass” Mengedoht had a mediocre start with all boats on port tack. Finding clear air was a challenge and it got worse as the wind faded approaching the AGC buoy, Full Moon dropping to ninth or tenth place.

There were a lot of boats out this week! (These were all behind us...)

The long leg north to the Freeway buoy saw the wind come and go with massive shifts and big lulls. A spinnaker would have been useful toward the north end of the lake and some boats did fly them, but the wind was unpredictable enough that Full Moon elected not to pop up the Equalizer, especially since it appeared it would be better used on the next leg. Meanwhile, Full Moon was hanging in there with the second start fleet, trading places with giant Lio Kai, two J22s, and the J24 Ragin Cajun.

Full Moon battles a J22 on the final leg.

Approaching the Freeway buoy, it was clear that the wind had shifted to the northwest and a spinnaker would not work. After rounding, Full Moon still hung in there, not close enough to the lead boats but trading places with others. For the final leg, the wind faded yet again and then filled sporadically from the west to southwest, some 270 degrees from during the start. Full Moon worked toward the middle of the lake where the wind seemed a little more consistent and proceeded to gain on and eventually pass Lio Kai, the three J-boats and a few others. At the finish, Full Moon managed what we believe was sixth place, not at all bad given the competition and the conditions.

The sun did peek through later on.