Red, White and Beer

Full Moon crew Art “Teacher” Teller, Katie “Cookies” Freels, Neil “Work Talk” Piispanen, Troy “Laptop” Charlesworth, Daniel “Big Pull” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Flags” Mengedoht set up nicely for a starboard tack start for the Red, White, and Blue Duck Dodge but then kindly allowed Zephyr to “barge” in to windward rather than force them to tack away from the Committee Boat or risk a collision. As a result, Full Moon was not positioned as well as planned but was at least able to tack just after the starting horn. Unfortunately, this also meant sailing in more disturbed wind for much of the first leg and watching the boats that started farther toward the pin doing much better.

Full Moon is at the far left, not long after the start.

Once around the Freeway buoy, things opened up a bit and Full Moon did a little better. Approaching the Aurora buoy, the wind went a bit light and shifty, requiring a double tack. Zephyr attempted to make it without tacking and ended up running over the buoy. Oops!

Full Moon is in the middle of this group on the second leg of the race.

The Equalizer went up smoothly for the long run south and some good wind pressure made sure it could work its magic, Full Moon passing quite a few boats before a clean drop and rounding of the AGC buoy. The long upwind leg was also fruitful as Full Moon seemed able to point higher than some of the competition. After rounding the Freeway buoy, Full Moon made sure to sail high to avoid needing additional tacks to round the Aurora buoy.

Lookin' good with the Equalizer on the third leg, about to pass Zephyr.

The Equalizer popped up quickly again for the spinnaker run but the wind was much lighter, even more so approaching the AGC buoy. The spinnaker stayed full, though, and came down fairly smoothly before rounding the buoy. On the final leg, Full Moon split from several boats heading east in hopes of making another pass or two but this had the opposite result. Still Full Moon finished ahead of the T-bird Selchie (a rare event!), well ahead of rival Zephyr, and not far behind usually speedy Tenacious. In any case, it was another outstanding sunny and fun evening on the lake.