Wednesday, August 3, 2016

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. 

2 comments:

  1. Thanks John, great picture, I wasn't going to let that thing roll me.

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  2. The Seascape should be really fast! Glad to see you guys hanging in there with them.

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