Insomniacs

J, Daniel, John, Tammie, and Kristen in the prestart maneuvers.

Pajama Night once again provided both sunny skies and a decent but very shifty breeze. Full Moon crew Art “I’m Ready” Teller, Tammy “Wrapped Up” Cross, J “Twinkle Toes” Irons, Kristen “Winch Wench” Bakken, Gary “Free Ride” Greene, Daniel “Multi-tasker” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Hemline” Mengedoht nailed the start on port tack at the “pin” end of the line in close company with several other boats, most of which were bigger, faster, or both. Big Mata Hari (Catalina 36) quickly pulled out ahead with speedy Dreams (Olson 25) not far behind.

The Thunderbird Valkyrie is dead ahead just after rounding the Freeway buoy - but Selchie is still behind!

What looked like a nice close reach to the Freeway buoy didn’t quite work out as the wind shifted about 150 yards out and Full Moon lost a couple of places with an extra tack. Once around, the wind went light and very shifty heading past Gasworks. The well-sailed Thunderbird Selchie made the best of this to get past before rounding the Aurora buoy (drat!).

After a brief delay to hoist the pole, the Equalizer was launched and Full Moon took off south, passing Selchie to leeward (hooray!) and gaining on the other boats ahead. The spinnaker came down cleanly at the AGC buoy and Full Moon headed north to complete the first lap.

Tammie gets into the spinnaker take-down.

The second lap had similar wind conditions as the first but Full Moon held her own, gaining and losing distance here and there but not passing or being passed. The spinnaker take-down got a bit messy but it stayed out of the water and Full Moon cruised to the line with an excellent 10^th place finish, still ahead of Selchie and more than 20 other boats.