Yellow Goose?

The Goosebumps Race Committee elected to create two starts for Race 3. The goal is (apparently) to split the fleet into roughly equal halves but, for Race 3, boats were assigned starts roughly based on the break between first and second start in the Duck Dodge races. Other than Scat, which went in first start, Full Moon and her usual Duck Dodge competitors were all in second start.

Crew Randy “Twisted” Olsen, Marcelle “Careful” Lynde, Chuck “Big Dinghy” Weldy, Daniel “Sideways” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Patience” Mengedoht had a decent starboard tack start but boats starting on port at the pin (buoy) end of the line did better and Full Moon suffered in disturbed wind for much of the first leg. After rounding the Freeway buoy a couple of spots back from arch-rival Zephyr, Full Moon took a line closer to Gasworks Park. This paid off quite well and Full Moon rounded the Aurora buoy nearly in the lead.

Crusing fast downwind on the first lap toward the Aurora buoy.

The Equalizer went up smoothly and Full Moon took off down the lake, forging into the lead and pulling away from the fleet. With a clean drop at the AGC buoy, Full Moon enjoyed clear air for the long close reach back to the Freeway buoy, though the T-bird Poco Mas and Ranger 26 Runner gained a bit upwind.

Yes, the knot meter is reading 6.12 knots!

By the Aurora buoy, Poco Mas was only a few boatlengths back. Then disaster struck as the Equalizer went up sideways! It was quickly dropped to the foredeck but, once sorted, it went back up with a horrendous twist that took several long minutes to clear.

The Equalizer is flying again! Yee Haw!!!

By the time the Equalizer was properly flying, Poco Mas had gone by, though Full Moon was able to get back to an inside overlap before the AGC buoy as both boats caught up to the Nomad 17 Patuxent.

Heading upwind to the finish, Poco Mas slowly pulled ahead. Unfortunately, Patuxent found a nice line of wind further west and also pulled a bit ahead. In the end it was still close but Full Moon was awarded the yellow vinyl sticker for third place with Poco Mas first, Patuxent scored second, and Runner about a minute or so behind in fourth. However, it turns out that Patuxent was actually in the first start! That boosts Full Moon to second with Runner third and Zephyr further back in seventh place out of 32 boats in second start.

The top three boats will be in first start next week, which is just as well since it turns out it is better for the series score to be last in first start than it is to be first in the second start! Who knew?!?

One Good Turn

Full Moon at the start in very light wind with Zephyr in the background.

The wind for Goosebump race No. 2 was forecast to be extremely light and the crews were all hoping to avoid a drifter with the Seahawks playing for the NFC Championship at 3:30. Fortunately, the wind filled in nicely out of the north at about 10 knots just before the race start. Full Moon crew Randy “Rusty” Olsen, Art “Rusty” Teller, Daniel “Rusty” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Rusty” Mengedoht hadn’t raced since September but managed a mid-pack start. The big J145 Jedi had a worse start, being over early and not returning to restart, but was penalized two minutes rather than given a DNF or DSQ.

Full Moon did reasonably well tacking on the shifts upwind but had a close call underestimating the speed of Lulu, tacking too close (sorry Lulu – I definitely owe you one). Once past Lulu, Full Moon rounded the Freeway buoy not far behind rival Zephyr (San Juan 28). Full Moon stayed close to Zephyr on the close reach past Gasworks but could not prevent Wizard (J27) from rolling past to windward.

Zephyr attempting to pass to windward.

Rounding the Aurora buoy, there was a short delay hoisting the spinnaker but Zephyr was slow with their hoist as well and Full Moon pulled ahead. Zephyr then altered course to steal Full Moon’s wind (good move) and, amazingly, tried to pass to windward (risky move!). Full Moon hailed “leeward!” and began to turn up to thwart the pass but it was clear Zephyr wasn’t going to yield, her skipper yelling back some nonsense about the definition of “leeward.”  Since Zephyr’s skipper has been sailing and racing long enough to know better, you can draw your own conclusions about this tactic. However, it wasn’t worth a collision to make a point and Full Moon turned back downwind. The two boats ended up mostly side by side all the way down the lake, Full Moon just slightly faster in the puffs but unable to pull ahead without going into Zephyr’s wind shadow and slowing back down. Full Moon did get by Wizard, though, and maybe another boat or two while staying ahead of a couple of theoretically faster J boats.

Approaching the AGC buoy, the J30 Slingshot finally caught up just before the 3 boat-length circle, maneuvering inside and establishing right of way over Zephyr to round the buoy, at least under the formal racing rules (not adopted for this series). This apparently didn’t go over very well aboard Zephyr but, as Zephyr and Slingshot fought it out, Full Moon was provided ample room to turn inside both boats. To avoid the ongoing scrap, Full Moon then tacked away from both boats and into clear air. This took Full Moon into the path of boats still coming down the lake under spinnaker but it was soon obvious that this course was going to pay off handsomely compared to all the boats that rounded without tacking.

Full Moon heading for the finish line!

Wizard and the J24 Fat Chance followed Full Moon but couldn’t quite catch up as Full Moon finished close behind the relative giant Yankee III (Sabre 40) to take eighth place, an outstanding result given the mediocre start and nearly 40 racers out on the lake. Our old rival Ignitor (Martin 29) scored fifth, just ahead of speedy Scat (custom 25). Zephyr ended up much farther behind in 17^th place. Karma?

No Goosebumps 4U

The first race of the Goosebump series on Lake Union was cancelled due to concerns about potential high winds, or, at least, high gusts. This was unfortunate, since the actual conditions turned out to be fairly benign, but Full Moon will be ready for race number two!