Not Quite Royalty

Full Moon just after the start.

The weather forecasters were a bit off for the Game of Thrones Duck Dodge, a large cloud dumping rain about 6:00 and soaking the boat, not to mention some distant rumblings of thunder. Full Moon crew Randy “Bluetooth” Olsen, Chuck “No Brakes” Weldy, Kristin “Electrocuted” Gasper, Kevin “Amazonia” Gasper, and skipper John “Slow Starter” Mengedoht were a bit late to the starting line, thereby missing a tight cluster of boats trying to clear the Committee Boat. A quick tack toward the Westlake shore soon provided clear and better breeze, allowing Full Moon to pass a number of boats before rounding the AGC buoy.

Chuck, Kristin, John, Randy, and Kevin enjoying the lack of rain.

The wind for the northbound leg was initially very light and from dead astern but soon filled in more from the west, filling the mighty Equalizer for a reasonably zippy reach. This got Full Moon past a few more boats while gaining on a Capri 25 and Duck Dodge veteran Tuesday (Columbia 26). Full Moon finally caught up to the Capri at the Freeway buoy but the Capri had the inside line to round ahead.

Tuesday, Capri 25 and Full Moon doing a mobile phone ad.

A tack to get out of the Capri’s wind shadow paid off well for most of the leg to the Aurora buoy but then the wind faded approaching the buoy, allowing the Capri to just retain their lead. Full Moon then took a hitch to leeward on the final leg in hopes of getting a little separation but the Capri didn’t falter, pulling ahead about 50 feet.

Full Moon approaches the Committee Boat.

Assuming we were well out of contention with the late start, Full Moon didn’t aggressively defend position when a J22 came up from behind. Much to our surprise, the Capri got the horn for second place followed by the J22 in third. Full Moon was all of two boat-lengths out of the top three!