Shiver Me Timbers!

Goosebump Race No. 2 continued the trend of extremely light wind with the added bonus of rain and colder temperatures. Full Moon crew Sara “Energy Conservation” Skinner, Randy “Boy Toys” Olsen, Art “It Will Kill You!” Teller, and skipper John “Shivering” Mengedoht tried to anticipate the best wind for the start and at first were doing relatively well near the middle of the lake. Unfortunately, progress was painfully slow, moving maybe 100 yards in the first fifteen minutes. The “wind” then grew slightly stronger toward the Westlake shore and Full Moon fell back toward the middle of the fleet.

After rounding the “AGC” and “Cove” buoys, Full Moon found an advantage toward the middle of the lake and made up some ground but the racing remained painfully slow and it took seemly forever to round the “Freeway” buoy. After crawling past Gasworks Park, Full Moon finally rounded the “Aurora” buoy but it appeared hopeless to reach the finish line within the two hour time limit.

A few boats attempted to fly spinnakers on the final leg but they mostly hung limp and Full Moon did better with the genoa, passing several boats and nearly catching Runner. Finally, just before the time limit, the Committee Boat hoisted anchor and began motoring toward the remaining racers, scoring each “finish” with a toot of the horn as they passed. The Full Moon crew gratefully fired up the outboard and headed for the dock.

I’ve no idea how we finished, if we were even scored (several boats did make it to the line before the time limit), but Full Moon was once again ahead of old rival Fortis. Ignitor and Shogun have not appeared for the first two races.