Good Day Sunshine

Randy likes the wind!

A strong north wind and brilliant sunshine greeted the forty boats showing up for the final Goosebump race of 2015. Full Moon crew Randy “Dad” Olsen, Art “Zipper” Teller, Chuck “RV” Weldy, and skipper John “Mae West” Mengedoht hit the starting line a few seconds late but without the drama of Scat, which dropped in from above the line and then started without having yet hoisted their jib.

The first leg to the Freeway buoy was fast with Full Moon heeling quite a bit in the gusts. The second leg to the Aurora buoy proved to be a straight shot without tacks, though just barely as Scat came zooming across in front and then tacked to windward while a J24 tried and failed to “shoot” up and around, becoming hung up on the buoy!

Art enjoys his perch at the mast.

With the wind looking strong and possibly building, Full Moon elected not to fly the spinnaker on the downwind leg to the offset AGC buoy. With initial speeds up over 6 knots, this looked like a good decision but the wind faded a bit halfway down the lake and Zephyr caught up under spinnaker just before rounding the buoy. Zephyr took a relatively wide turn and Full Moon hugged the buoy to take a position to windward before slowly pulling ahead while pointing higher into the wind. Two tacks were still required to round the Freeway buoy but Zephyr was still behind and losing ground.

Once again, it was a straight shot to the Aurora buoy, though care was required to take advantage of every lift to get there without a tack. This time, the mighty Equalizer was hoisted and to good effect. Unfortunately, gybing it resulted in a dreaded “Mae West,” with the spinnaker partly wrapped around the forestay. It was cleared just before another gybe was needed – with another Mae West! This one was cleared just before the AGC buoy, which meant that the jib was hoisted after rounding.

Mae West!

Fortunately, it was a straight shot upwind to the finish where Full Moon managed to place ninth (tenth overall), not bad at all given the first-start competition. Zephyr ended up eleventh (thirteenth overall), which proved significant in the series standings: Full Moon managed to place fifth overall (despite not racing on Superbowl Sunday), squeaking ahead of Zephyr by a single point!

Congratulations to T-birds Selchie and Havoc, which consistently kicked butt, taking second and third place in the series, and to the 505 dinghy Quandary (replacement for Cinc-o-sink) for taking fourth among all those giant boats.