Keep On Swimming...

Debra and Chuck with their funky hats.

Selchie with Full Moon in the background on the first leg. 

Gravel barge coming through! 

J'Estalt leads Selchie on the first downwind run. Full Moon has the orange spinnaker way behind, though we would  be ahead of all these boats at the finish!

Relative to the wind, the "pin" end was favored for the Funky Hat Night Duck Dodge. However, relative to the first buoy, the Committee boat end was heavily favored. Full Moon crew Debra “Shamrock” Ricard, Chuck “Black Butte” Weldy, and skipper John “No Ice” Mengedoht opted to run the line a short distance on starboard and then tack in hopes of avoiding some of the traffic. This worked mostly as planned but the boats starting right at the Committee boat, including rival Zephyr, came out ahead. Once the relative giant (36’) Mata Hari rolled by to windward, Full Moon was ninth heading to the Freeway buoy.

The wind was very light and would remain so throughout the race. Full Moon matched the pace of the fleet across Gasworks Park to the Aurora buoy and, while unable to gain on Zephyr, was mixing it up well with the Thunderbirds and J-24s. Unfortunately, a gravel barge and pusher tug came through under the Freemont Bridge just in time to delay Full Moon from rounding the Aurora buoy.

In deference to the small crew, the vintage 1978 and somewhat porous standard spinnaker was hoisted instead of the mighty Equalizer. This was probably the right choice overall but it was painful not to have the nylon monster to provide the usual speed boost. Still, a move toward the center of the lake did help find a bit more wind and Full Moon closed the gap a bit on Zephyr.

After rounding the ACG buoy to head back upwind, Full Moon managed to hold off the J24 J’Estalt halfway up the leg while gaining a bit more on Zephyr. J’Estalt did manage to get past, though, and after passing the Freeway buoy, Zephyr maintained their lead to the Aurora buoy, where the wind had gone extremely light.

On the second downwind run, it was a challenge to keep the spinnaker flying but Full Moon found the few zones of better wind while many boats closer to the Westlake shore had difficulties. Amazingly, Full Moon managed to pass two J24s, including J’Estalt, the T-bird Selchie, Mata Hari, and a J27 before rounding the AGC buoy. Zephyr, however, remained comfortably ahead.

Full Moon held off any challengers to the finish, placing about eighth followed by Selchie and Mata Hari, the J27, J’Estalt and the rest of the J24s and Thunderbirds. Zephyr finished about fifth while old rivals Ignitor and Fortis were at least half a lap behind.