Dead Parrot Society

The skies were sunny for the Pirate Night Duck Dodge and there was mostly decent wind to make things even better. Full Moon crew Art “50 Cent” Teller, Debra “Top of the Game” Ricard, Dave “Spaghetti Sheets” Pulsifer, Judy “Sun-Bather” Tiffany, Daniel “What Parrot?” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Close Call” Mengedoht were set up for a good if relatively conservative starboard tack start near the Committee Boat. Unfortunately, Gift Horse slipped in to windward and just ahead. Even more unfortunately, Gift Horse didn’t have enough speed up to tack in front of other boats coming from behind, leaving Full Moon pinned to leeward for what felt like several minutes until Gift Horse finally tacked away toward the Freeway buoy.

Full Moon full of pirates.

While old-rival Zephyr was behind, even-older-rival Ignitor was ahead and it was time for a Full Moon comeback. A straight shot with good speed to the Freeway buoy and then another to the Aurora buoy helped. A quick launch of the mighty Equalizer spinnaker helped even more, allowing Full Moon to pick off several boats and gain on several more on the long downwind/reach to the AGC buoy.

Art's work is done with the Equalizer flying.

Once around the AGC, Ignitor was left behind, and Full Moon was tasked with holding off a white T-bird just to windward and behind. The lee-bow effect worked well until the T-bird tacked away to make it across the start-finish line to complete the first lap. Full Moon carried on a short distance before tacking as well but then had to dodge a couple of third-start boats, losing a bit of distance in the process.

Zephyr and Mata Hari behind with many more behind them.

By the Freeway buoy, Full Moon had worked up to at least mid-fleet with speedy Scat and the J30 Slingshot not too far ahead. After another nice spinnaker run, it was great to look back and see several J-Boats, at least one T-bird, and even 36’ Mata Hari comfortably behind. All in all, it was a great evening on the water, complete with many well-dressed pirates and even some cannon-fire!

Yet another gorgeous evening on Lake Union.