Freedom Reigns

Don trims as we gain on Freedom.

Tammy gets into the spinnaker take-down!

Full Moon was, finally, right on time at the starting line for the Red Wine, White Wine and the Blues Duck Dodge, a little farther left than ideal but clear of some traffic that appeared bent on fouling each other in the middle of the line. Crew Randy “Double Triple” Olsen, Katie “Cold Beer” Freels, Don “Short Hoist” Caffrey, Tammy “Skinny Dip” Cross, and skipper John “Trouble Maker” Mengedoht made the most of it with a clear lane and only two tacks to the Challenger buoy. Oncoming traffic made hoisting the spinnaker a bit risky plus a Thunderbird was just to leeward and determined to sail a hotter angle so the hoist was delayed for about a quarter of the leg. Once up, though, the Equalizer easily pulled Full Moon ahead of the Thunderbird and it was on to the Freeway buoy.

After nearly a straight shot past Gasworks to the Aurora buoy, the rest of the long 2 ½ lap race became a matchup with the J22 Freedom and a modified dull gray Thunderbird as the fleet spread out. The T-bird eventually pulled ahead but Full Moon mixed it up with Freedom all the way to the finish line with Freedom coming out ahead by mere inches to take 11th place out of some 40 boats.

Meanwhile Shogun, Fortis, and Ignitor all started behind Full Moon and were never a threat, all finishing a full leg or more behind.