Breeze On!

Full Moon crew Art “Busy Boy” Teller, Chuck “Tattered Hat” Weldy, J “Jersey” Irons, Daniel “Leverage” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Speedy” Mengedoht encountered sunny skies but also white caps and a strong gusty northerly for the Toga Night Duck Dodge. This precipitated the unusual step of setting up the No. 3 (100%) jib as well as the standard spinnaker instead of No. 1 genoa and the mighty Equalizer.

With the breeze and crowded starting area, Full Moon opted for a starboard tack start, hoping to cross about half way down the line. Unfortunately, two much larger boats were able to get to windward near the Committee Boat, killing our speed. The result wasn’t great and Full Moon crossed the line about mid-pack. Still, the boat was well balanced with the small jib and progress was rapid on the first leg to the Aurora buoy.

The spinnaker went up quickly for the downwind run and Full Moon was soon engaged in a battle with one of the Buchan 37s. The Buchan eventually pulled ahead but Full Moon got past a few other boats and ended up close behind the J-80 Crazy Ivan before rounding the AGC buoy. Amazingly, Full Moon got by Runner just after the buoy and, even more amazingly, passed Crazy Ivan upwind on the long leg to the Freeway buoy!

On the second lap, Crazy Ivan managed to get back in front under spinnaker but Full Moon kept hammering away at other boats and it appears we passed or stayed ahead of all the Thunderbirds, which is always nice. At the downwind finish, Full Moon was officially eighth, a great accomplishment on an evening that should have favored the bigger boats.

Unfortunately, Full Moon will miss the July 31 Duck Dodge as her skipper has a business trip but she'll be back to enjoy Tropical Night on August 7.