Watermelon Beer

Heading upwind on the 3rd leg.

The Pajama Night Duck Dodge was pretty windy before the start and Full Moon crew Chuck “Salty Dog” Weldy, Dave “Learning Experience” Pulsifer, Allison “Watermelon Beer” Bahe, Alex “Rookie” Arreola, Daniel “Pac-Man” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Bucket of Ratchets” Mengedoht opted to set things up with the ancient small spinnaker instead of the Equalizer, partly due to lack of experience on the foredeck. Full Moon got a good start on port tack clear of traffic near the buoy end but boats closer to the Committee Boat were still (mostly) able to lay the Freeway buoy without tacking so some of the faster boats got ahead.

Chuck, Dave, and Daniel in the dimming light.

The course then went directly to the AGC buoy, which meant that boats from behind (or later starts) were sailing directly at boats on the second leg, making for some close calls. Full Moon hoisted the spinnaker on the second leg but it wasn’t much faster, if any, than the genoa, given the wind angle. The spinnaker came down nicely at the AGC buoy rather than jibe for the broad reach to the Chandler’s buoy. Once around Chandler’s, it was a nearly straight upwind shot back to the Freeway buoy, with only two short tacks on final approach.

Another fantastic evening on the water.

The spinnaker stayed in the bag for the “downwind” leg, the wind consistently tighter than a beam reach. Two more legs and Full Moon was done, finishing roughly tenth. It was a beautiful evening on the lake, though the sun sets WAY too early! I can’t believe there are only two more Duck Dodge races!

Equalized Again!

Full Moon in prestart maneuvers. Michelle Mathison photo via Facebook.

From a racing point of view, the Mardi Gras Duck Dodge did not start well for Full Moon crew Art “Traffic” Teller, Debra “XX” Ricard, Sophie “Beautiful” Ricard, Chad “Trucker Hat” Harnish, Daniel “Growing” Mengedoht, and skipper John “King” Mengedoht. First, the start timing horns were inconsistent, causing Full Moon to be farther back from the line than intended when the “real” horn sounded. Then, third start traffic (which should have been nowhere near the starting line) continued to blunder across on starboard tack, preventing Full Moon from tacking and crossing the line. The net result was Full Moon starting very nearly last, our worst start in recent memory. But forget all that. The sun was shining, there was a nice northerly breeze, and we were sailing!

Happy campers Sophie and Debra.

We also had a lot of boats to pass… This began early, picking off a couple of boats on a fast close reach to the Freeway buoy and then a few more heading across to the Aurora buoy. The Equalizer was soon launched for a speedy beam reach down the lake, passing a couple more boats, including old rival Ignitor. Full Moon gained rapidly on 30’ Tenacious but also had to defend against a J22 attempting to pass to windward as Full Moon entered the wind shadow from Tenacious. Fortunately, the J22 ended up going to windward of Tenacious and Full Moon eventually punched through the wind shadow to lead both boats to the AGC buoy. As Full Moon was rounding, another boat poked its bow inside Tenacious (without rights, at least from a racing rules point of view) forcing Tenacious to take a very wide rounding. Full Moon, however, made it around cleanly and was soon flying north on a tight reach, leaving the bumper boats behind.

More happy campers, Art and Daniel after the hoist.

Safari, a large (C&C?) boat compared to Full Moon, began to converge from leeward on approach to the Freeway buoy, getting clear ahead just before the buoy. Then, about 2/3 of the way across the lake, it became apparent that the Aurora buoy had moved or was missing. Safari quickly turned south while Full Moon continued looking for a short while. Meanwhile, Ignitor, which was several hundred yards behind, decided the head south while still only halfway across the lake!

Chad before we found his hat. (You had to be there.)

Time for the Equalizer! Full Moon slowly reeled in first Safari and then Ignitor before a clean drop to round the AGC buoy. Then it was hammer down upwind to the finish, staying ahead of both boats and nearly catching yet another before crossing the line. In the end, Full Moon was somewhere in the middle of the fleet, not at all bad considering the start. 

Equalized!

Full Moon crew in the prestart maneuvers.

The weather wasn’t especially tropical for the Tropical Night Duck Dodge but there was no rain and enough wind from the SW to move. Full Moon crew Michael “Pointy End” Medina, Chuck “Geezer” Weldy, Tammy “Takedown” Cross, Kelly “Buried Alive” Laleman, Daniel “Quick Hoist” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Dull End” Mengedoht enjoyed a decent start about a third of the way down the line from Committee Boat and ended up just to leeward and slightly ahead of old rival Ignitor. The “lee bow” position was effective, causing Ignitor to fall behind and then to leeward. A J24 then elected to tack away to avoid a similar fate.

Cruising upwind not long after the start. The black boat is Ignitor.

Unfortunately, boats closer to Committee Boat enjoyed slightly stronger wind and faced a shorter distance to the AGC buoy. Full Moon tacked west for better wind but then had to deal with traffic, ducking a few boats. Nearing the buoy, Ignitor approached from the east, back ahead of Full Moon. After rounding, it was a very short leg to the floating “island” to snag a few free cups of beer. Full Moon then headed toward the Chandlers buoy before remembering it wasn’t part of the course!

After a quick jibe, the Equalizer was brought into play. A J24 and Ignitor were busy battling each other, leaving a nice lane to pass them both to windward. Nearing the Freeway buoy, Full Moon nearly caught Selchie and was not at all far behind speedy Scat! After rounding, Ignitor was working hard to catch back up, but to no avail. On the long leg south, Full Moon stayed in touch with Scat and Selchie but Ignitor managed so slide by approaching the AGC buoy. Full Moon swung past the “island” again right on Selchie’s stern while Ignitor stayed clear, sailing a bit less distance…

Heading for the finish line...

Then it was time to hoist the Equalizer again and pass Ignitor again. Full Moon nearly got past Selchie as well approaching the Freeway buoy but couldn’t quite get by, though Full Moon had the inside line at the buoy. After rounding, Selchie faded north while Full Moon stayed more on the wind in hopes of laying the Aurora buoy without tacking. This worked just fine, Full Moon rounding ahead of Selchie and still ahead of Ignitor and then maintaining the lead to the finish to take eighth. In fairness to Selchie, they had a LOT of people on board, which can’t have helped much with performance!

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Speeeed!

The happy crew prior to the start.

The wind shifted from the NW to N-NE just prior to the start of the Fleet Week Duck Dodge, messing up the starting strategy for Full Moon crew Michael “Tidy-up” Medina, Dave “Big Pull” Pulsifer, Judy “White Pants” Tiffany, Rolf “Takedown Hero” Van Houten, Daniel “Halyards” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Mast Bend” Mengedoht. Hardening up on starboard tack to cross the line, Full Moon was in close company with several boats, Necessary Evil (Catalina 30) eventually rolling out ahead while old rival Ignitor (Martin 29) tacked away somewhat early. A fortuitous header/lift coincided with Full Moon’s tack bringing us nearly to the (new) layline for the Freeway buoy ahead of both Ignitor and Necessary Evil, though behind speedy Scat, Selchie, a J92S, a sexy brand new Seascape 27 (in second start?), a fairly large boat called Tonic, and a couple of other boats.

The second leg to the Aurora buoy fluctuated between a close reach and a broad reach and Full Moon elected to set up the spinnaker for the much longer third leg rather than try and hoist the Equalizer and jibe it at the buoy. Ignitor and Necessary Evil hoisted spinnakers and slowly gained from behind, Ignitor eventually flying into the mark on starboard jibe, her skipper screaming about right of way over boats that had already jibed onto port in order to round the buoy. While the Duck Dodge does not officially embrace the racing rules, most boats respect the 3 boat-length rule at the buoys in order to keep things somewhat orderly, the result being that a lot of boats were suddenly converging amidst lots of yelling. Full Moon, also still on starboard jibe and leeward of Ignitor, had just enough room to squeak by the buoy before quickly launching the Equalizer. (Prior to Ignitor’s arrival, the plan was to harden up to go astern of the port tack boats.) When the dust had settled, Full Moon had pulled away to a considerable lead over all the boats in the cluster at the buoy, flying along on a beam reach in strong breeze. Thanks, Ignitor!

 

Selchie (left) and the Seascape 27 battle on the first lap.

The takedown, always a challenge on a windy beam reach, went very smoothly at the AGC buoy, Full Moon close behind Tonic. Selchie and Scat had also done very well on the long reaching leg, Selchie still a couple of hundred yards ahead of Full Moon and Scat even farther ahead. The wind had clocked even further into the NE for the fourth leg and Full Moon was able to lay the Freeway buoy without tacking. Amazingly, Distance (Buchan 37) from first start was not far ahead despite a five minute head start.

 

It was a gray evening but there was a little glow on the horizon at sunset.

The second lap was mostly a repeat of the first except that there wasn’t much traffic around Full Moon. A J24 tried valiantly to overtake under spinnaker but could not quite get by on the long leg south. Full Moon enjoyed another smooth takedown at the AGC and put the hammer down for the finish line. The J24 still could not catch up and, to our great surprise, Distance was also behind though coming on very fast. Full Moon maneuvered into a lee bow position to try and slow the much bigger boat and this was just enough to finish ahead. In the end, Scat took first, Selchie was third (way to go!), and Full Moon, we think, was seventh, our best finish of the summer.