T-Bone Pirates

The Seafair Pirates have nothing on the Duck Dodgers!

Full Moon crew Randy “Early Riser” Olsen, Art “Twisted Stick” Teller, Doug “Late Boat” Schoemaker, Eileen “No Shrimpin” McHugh, Daniel “Twizzler” Mengedoht, and skipper John “No Overlap” Mengedoht had a decent start for the Pirate Night Duck Dodge until getting rolled by the much bigger Norlin 34 Runaway. Tacking out of Runaway’s slipstream would have meant ducking too many boats, so Full Moon suffered in bad air for a while. Eventually, things opened up and Full Moon tacked toward the Westlake shore and better breeze, though our ancient rival Ignitor had found even better breeze near the Eastlake shore and very nearly poked out in front.

Meanwhile, toward the middle of the lake, the big and heavy Buchan 37 Distance was cranking along on port tack and apparently oblivious to the Santana 27 Shogun crossing on starboard. The resulting t-bone created that horrific sound nobody likes to hear and we hope that Shogun (and especially all her crew) will be okay.

Full Moon rolls by Runaway under the Mighty Isis.

Full Moon delayed jibing and raising the spinnaker after rounding the AGC buoy to provide a little separation from all the traffic still heading south. Once hoisted, the Mighty Isis (aka the Equalizer) proved its worth downwind, as Full Moon quickly took off and chased down Runaway while also keeping a decent lead on speedy Scat. The Mighty Isis came down smoothly at the Freeway buoy, though it took a while to get things sorted and the jib properly trimmed and somehow the mainsail outhaul got released (!).

Another view. Full Moon is moving pretty fast judging by the bow wave!

Once settled into a groove, it was a straight shot to the Aurora buoy, though Full Moon had to maneuver a bit to hold off the T-Bird Valkyrie. The rounding then got a little ugly as Valkyrie attempted to poke inside without having established an overlap the requisite three boat-lengths out (our opinion and, of course, part of the racing rules but not officially part of the Duck Dodge rules, though many boats follow them anyway). Full Moon tacked just after the buoy, forcing Valkyrie to tack as well, which proved unpopular on the other boat. Apparently, Valkyrie’s skipper had hoped to prevent Full Moon from tacking for a while. Better luck next time! (Not really. Is there a reason they keep an inflatable lamb stuck on their bow?)

Heading back south, Cap’n John very nearly forgot that the course instructions required crossing the finish line at the end of the first lap. The resulting late course change set Ignitor out in front but it was better than ignoring (or forgetting) the rule as happened to Valkyrie, Runaway, and at least two other boats. The Race Committee was actually watching for this, too, and those boats were all disqualified, not that any were in serious contention for a top three finish. Regardless, Full Moon passed Ignitor before reaching the AGC buoy so all was well.

Seaquest snags the Aurora buoy!

The second spinnaker run went very smoothly, as did the takedown at the Freeway buoy. It was another straight shot to the Aurora buoy, too, though a third-start boat named Seaquest had managed to snag the buoy with their rudder and Full Moon had to round both the buoy and the boat! Once around, it was a straight upwind haul to finish seventh (as best we could tell). Scat was next with Ignitor two boats further back and Zephyr another two boats after Ignitor. This makes seven straight races with no rain! (Hope I didn’t just jinx us for next week…)

Lots of boats out enjoying yet another fine Tuesday evening.