Wild Ride!

Full Moon crew Randy “Bowrider” Olsen, Adam “Full Sail” Michalak, and skipper John “Spinnaker?” Mengedoht prepared for the final Goosebump race based on the forecast winds of around 10 knots. However, during the 10 minutes prior to the start, the wind quickly increased, requiring an unplanned change to the small “blade” jib. This took a bit of time, resulting in Full Moon being about two minutes late crossing the line, but was well worth it as the wind built into the low 20s, way too much wind for the genoa. Full Moon was still slightly overpowered upwind in the gusts but much more comfortable (and safe) to sail while managing good speed as well.

Full Moon zips along the leg from the Freeway buoy to the Aurora buoy.

Rounding the AGC buoy, Full Moon wasn’t too far behind speedy Scat, which had sailed the first leg under mainsail alone. Scat did hoist what looked like a #2 jib for the downwind leg, helping them to maintain a lead, though Full Moon was topping six knots in the puffs. Full Moon briefly considered hoisting the “small” ancient stock spinnaker as the wind eased a bit but the wind quickly came roaring back and the speed gain would not have been worth the effort of taking the thing back down shorthanded.

Even with a full crew, taking down a spinnaker can be a challenge! This is a Santana 20, Full Moon's little cousin.

The leg from the Freeway buoy to the Aurora buoy was a perfect beam reach with Full Moon hitting a sustained 7+ knots several times. Yee hah! Bashing back upwind, Scat dropped their jib again and the chase was on. Full Moon gained but couldn’t quite catch up, Scat apparently sailing pretty well with just a main.

Randy says "This is fun, right?"

The second downwind leg was similar to the first until Scat inexplicably headed off course to the northeast instead of rounding the Freeway buoy. In the end, Full Moon was happy to place fourth (out of seven boats) behind much larger Typsy Gypsy (33’), Surt (40’) and Distance (37’).

 

Cap'n John likes this stuff!

The series results aren’t officially posted quite yet but, with Typsy Gypsy and Selchie both having a DNF and a DNS each, Full Moon should be second overall with one second, two fourths, and an average finish of about fifth. Congratulations to Surt for taking first overall!