Drifter

The Prom Night Duck Dodge finally brought the very light winds common to late summer, though it would hard to fault the sunny skies and warm temperatures. Full Moon crew Randy “One Hit Wonders” Olsen, Michael “Booksitter” Medina, Allison “Prom Queen” Bahe, Jonathan “Quick Study” Bahe, Daniel “DJ” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Mirror Ball” Mengedoht were held up on final approach to the starting line by a  barely moving 3^rd start boat and ended up crossing a full minute and a half late. There was a line of wind about halfway down the leg but it seemed to take forever to get to it and, of course, the boats that got there first pulled way ahead.

Full Moon is nearly dead center under the crane. This was the second leg of the race.

Undeterred, Full Moon gained slowly on a knot of boats converging at the AGC buoy and, once around, held off jibing to get some separation before launching the spinnaker. This paid off quite well as Full Moon benefitted from the occasional puff of wind to pass quite a few boats, even catching up to speedy Scat at one point. The wind then shifted from SW to NW and the spinnaker was quickly brought down, maybe a bit too quickly as Full Moon did a little “shrimping.” Soon after, Scat was able to slide past to windward and hold the inside line to the Freeway buoy.

Full Moon chasing Scat on the final leg.

Full Moon held off tacking at the Freeway buoy, choosing a course closer to Gasworks for the leg to the Aurora buoy. This proved to be a wise decision as Full Moon crossed ahead of Scat further on, though Scat managed to poke back in front before rounding the buoy.

Another gorgeous evening on the lake.

The leg south was now a broad reach and the Equalizer was hoisted, though it went up with a twist. The light air made it fairly easy to rectify but Scat took advantage to pull farther ahead. With such light wind, the question was whether the Race Committee would call the race after one lap or not. There was a double blast of the air horn at one point but it came among blasts for finishing boats from 3^rd start so it was hard to determine if it meant anything. A few boats had obviously quit racing but Full Moon kept going to the AGC buoy, just in case. At that point, it was pretty clear that the racing was done and Full Moon converted to cruiser mode, drifting slowly northward to catch the sunset.