Beware the white T-Bird to starboard!
Despite the bank of clouds, there was a nice sunset through the Aurora Bridge.
It was Red Wine, White Wine and the Blues Night at the Duck Dodge this week and Full Moon crew Art “Silverback” Teller, Michael “Mike-ronesia” Medina, Tammy “The Onion” Cross, Don “iPhone” Caffrey, and skipper John “Boat Policy” Mengedoht did their best to dress for the theme. The wind was decent but the starting line was extremely crowded, slowing everybody down. Full Moon was in the middle of a tight group when a white T-bird came flying up from behind with no space to fit into (though they could easily have turned aside). All hands joined in fending off, barely averting the crunching of fiberglass and plywood.
As the fleet slowly spread out upwind, Full Moon was able to make a straight shot to the AGC buoy. Boats rounding the mark were returning on a reciprocal course, though being on port tack they had to yield to boats still approaching the buoy on starboard tack. A black T-bird heading for the buoy was caught in the traffic and without warning changed course directly in front of a J-22, resulting in a loud bang and both boats heading directly for Full Moon’s port side. Quick maneuvering prevented further catastrophe but Full Moon stayed well away from T-birds for the rest of the race!
The wind increased a bit on the legs to the “Freeway” and “Aurora” buoys and old rival Shogun managed to exploit the shifts and catch Full Moon. This resulted in a great battle under spinnaker with the usual banter between boats. Returning upwind to start the second lap, though, Full Moon took off and left Shogun behind for good.
The rest of the race was spent trading places with the J-22 Rawhide. In the end, Full Moon edged out Rawhide under spinnaker for the downwind finish to take 12th out of some 30 boats. As always, a good time was had by all.
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