Shaken AND Stirred

Most boats looked like this upwind.

Conditions at the dock prior to Goosebump Race No. 3 seemed pretty normal and Full Moon was set up with the new genoa and with the Equalizer ready to go. However, crew Randy “Not Letting Go” Olsen, Michael “Cabin Boy” Medina, Katie “Low Rider” Freels, Stephen “360” Doyle, and skipper John “Round-up” Mengedoht soon found that the wind on the lake was quite a bit stronger than the forecast 10 knots.

Full Moon probably looked a bit like this with too much jib and a flogging main.

Despite somewhat irregular horn signals from the Race Committee, Full Moon was positioned fairly well for the start, though quickly rolled by 40’ Surt. With too much sail up in some 20 knots of breeze, it was a wild ride to the AGC buoy and having to double-tack at the end of the leg resulted in Full Moon being next to last in the 10-boat first start.

Yeah, kind of like this.

Turning downwind, launching the Equalizer would have been suicidal and with the knot-meter frequently hovering in the upper six knot range, it is doubtful a smaller spinnaker would have been all that helpful, though Selchie seemed to do well with theirs. A larger boat didn’t do quite so well, exploding their chute and having a challenge getting the shredded remains back down on the deck.

Gust and round-up...

After rounding the Freeway buoy, it was a fast and still over-amped close reach to the Aurora buoy before heading back upwind. Not long after that, it appeared that Scat decided to retire rather than take further bashing. Full Moon kept going, though, with the mainsail mostly back-winded and the new genoa undergoing stress testing. Approaching the southern end of the lake, a big gust brought a scoop of lake water into the cockpit followed by a big round-up and an unplanned tack, resulting in a second scoop of water as the genoa briefly pinned the boat down.

And briefly pinned by the jib...

The rest of the second lap was similar to the first, though Full Moon got passed by a couple of larger second start boats before the finish, which came a little sooner than expected since the Committee boat had apparently dragged anchor! Apart from Scat’s DNF, Full Moon was dead last and then some but the crew was happy just to make it around in one piece!