Damp Duck

Daniel grabs the vinyl trophy from the Race Committee.

Kristen likes this stuff!

Daniel is happy to have layers and a good rain jacket.

Cougar colors dominated under the rain gear aboard Full Moon for the Team Spirit Duck Dodge. Crew Art “Pretzels” Teller, Debra “Double Jibe” Ricard, Tammy “Snug Gloves” Cross, Kristen “Shake It!” Bakken, Daniel “Trophy Boy” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Accidental Jibe” Mengedoht enjoyed a good start in light winds, about 4^th or 5^th across the line, and were soon mixing it up with the Ranger 22 Anakena and the Catalina 27 Deception for the lead, with the Santana 20 Hot Cookies not far behind. The second start boats must have had even lighter wind as Full Moon caught a quite a few before reaching the Freeway buoy.

After rounding, the mighty Equalizer was launched but the wind became extremely shifty and still very light, causing a few unplanned jibes. Still, Full Moon kept moving down the course and soon was in the lead by a good margin, passing still more second start boats such as Zephyr and the giant Bolero (Choate 40) as the wind filled in a bit. The spinnaker came down cleanly at the AGC buoy and, while Bolero threatened with an overlap to windward for awhile, Full Moon eventually pulled out ahead again and then tacked in front of the Olson 30 Chaos, yet another second start boat!

Rounding the Chandler’s Cove buoy, the course to the finish was a straightforward close reach and Full Moon cruised easily to the line for yet another Gold Duck! Anakena was second and Deception a close third, though both boats were a long way behind speedy Full Moon. Despite the rain, the cold beer tasted pretty fine. Good times!