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.