Slo-mo-shun!

Lots of boats on the lake!

The Wedding Night Duck Dodge continued our amazing warm, sunny weather and light wind pattern. Full Moon crew Michael “Padre” Medina, Marcelle “Flapper” van Houten, Christian “Top Hat” Grange, Neil “Wedding Crasher” Piispanen, Daniel “Blue Box” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Edison” Mengedoht were fairly well positioned for the start but an initial tack onto port had to be aborted to clear oncoming starboard tack boats. Then, a decision to favor the east side of the course in hopes of clear air proved disastrous as the wind proved much better toward the middle of the lake.

Bride with Beer.

By the end of the extremely painful first leg to the Freeway buoy, Full Moon was deep toward the back of the second start fleet and had been passed by a number of third start boats plus some dinghies from fourth start. The only good news: the Thunderbird Selchie, which had gotten hung up on the buoy, had freed herself before Full Moon arrived! Thankfully, the wind picked up on the second leg to the Aurora buoy and the spinnaker reach/run to the AGC buoy briefly brought Full Moon’s speed up over six knots.

Second start. Full Moon is somewhere to the left, going slow...

Good speed heading back upwind finished the first lap but it was difficult to tell if the Race Committee had finished the second start (we saw at least one second start boat with headsail down) or whether we were on for the full two laps. With our old rival Zephyr ahead and still sailing, though, Full Moon continued racing.

First downwind leg. Full Moon is at the far left, way back there!

After rounding the Freeway buoy, Full Moon gained a bit on Zephyr. A nice turn at the Aurora buoy with a quick hoist of the Equalizer brought additional hope of catching our rival but Zephyr maintained good speed all the way to the AGC buoy. The final leg upwind brought no change and Zephyr finished ahead by 50 yards. Meanwhile, the beer and Prosecco were ice cold, the evening comfortably warm, and a great time was had by all.