Beat the Birds!

No simple white togas on Full Moon!
Passing the Thunderbirds.

Still ahead at the Challenger buoy.

Night falls too early these days!

Full Moon crew Debra “Nala” Ricard, Randy “Handbrake” Olsen, Michael “Low Pole” Medina, and skipper John “Early Onset” Mengedoht once again faced a skewed starting line and once again opted for a risky port tack start for the Toga Night Duck Dodge. This time, however, there were no gaps in the wall of starboard-tackers so Full Moon had to wait a bit to cross the line. Even so, this provided a good start with good speed and pointing the desired direction. Full Moon was ahead of all the old rivals and hanging in there with frequent winners Runner and Scat.

Bigger boats like 36-foot Mata Hari and the Buchan 37s Mara and Dreamscape enjoyed the relatively strong breeze and, rounding the Aurora buoy, Full Moon was eleventh. Deploying the mighty Equalizer spinnaker, a threatening blue Thunderbird fell behind but the game was on with a fast J80, Taj Mahal, which struggled to get by despite having an asymmetrical spinnaker perfect for the conditions.

After a clean spinnaker drop, Full Moon was right on Taj Mahal’s transom on a short reaching leg to the Challenger buoy. Returning upwind, however, Taj began to pull ahead while the blue T-bird slowly came up from behind. Full Moon’s line to the Aurora buoy was just a hair low in progressively lighter and shiftier wind and the T-bird got past as Full Moon did two quick tacks to get around.

The Equalizer was hoisted again and Full Moon paralleled the Westlake shore, not too close but not out to the middle of the lake. Amazingly, not only Taj Mahal and the blue T-bird but also the infamous red T-bird Barbaree were caught in dying wind just a little too close to the beach and Full Moon was able to walk on by a mere 20 yards further out. Somehow, the Equalizer remained full to the AGC buoy. Now Full Moon needed hold off the two quick Thunderbirds and the theoretical rocket Taj Mahal for two more legs to the finish.

While there are just plain faster boats in the Duck Dodge, T-birds have similar performance to Full Moon and are often a thorn in her side. If ever it was “game on,” this was the time! On the reaching leg to the Challenger buoy, Full Moon maintained the lead. The final leg was upwind. One by one the other boats tacked and Full Moon tacked to cover. Across the lake went all four. Then Barbaree tacked for the finish and Full Moon tacked to cover. The others could not gain. Game over! Full Moon finished a fabulous ninth ahead of ALL the Thunderbirds AND the J80 and ALL the J22s as well.