Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Rock The Boat, Baby!

Band Night featured a smoky sun, lots of heat, and minimal wind.
Full Moon crew Randy “Go Behind” Olsen, Ian “Starboard” Mengedoht, Daniel “Port” Mengedoht, Rebecca “Day Camp” Herivel, and skipper John “Whatever” Mengedoht were stuck in a windless mess for the start of the Band Night Duck Dodge on the second hottest day of the year. With numerous “tacks” to avoid other boats, it was over 10 minutes before Full Moon oozed across the line. Deciding that a top three finish was not remotely possible, Daniel employed serious “kinetics” (rocking the boat) to propel Full Moon forward and out of the drifting pack. (This would, of course, be cheating in serious racing.)

Since we were out there anyway, it was decided to proceed at least to the Freeway buoy. This took a long time but then the wind filled in enough to keep going to the Aurora buoy, and then to hoist the Equalizer for the long leg south. This worked well until the wind died again on approach to the AGC buoy. Full Moon barely kept moving, just enough to reach the buoy.

The final leg, however, looked dismal. There is typically a 9 PM cut-off for racing, though, and kinetics were put into play once more in hopes of "finishing" before then. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to us, the Race Committee had decided to call the race at 8:30 and no boats from third start were scored.

Fortunately, we had ample supplies of assorted cold beverages aboard to help beat the heat!

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