Hot Jammies

The Pajama Night Duck Dodge was once again very warm with clear blue skies AND wind! Full Moon crew Michael “No Overlap” Medina, Marcelle “Flipper” Van Houten, Bill “Parental Judgment” Altemeier, Nick “Not Yet” Altemeier, Daniel “Not My Pack” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Twisted Pack” Mengedoht  opted for a fairly conservative starboard tack start and were only briefly held up by a large boat to windward before tacking to cross the line. The wind angle and placement of the Freeway buoy led to many boats converging at different angles. Speedy Selchie (T-bird) achieved an early overlap to windward to go inside Full Moon but some other boats converging from behind ran out of room. The result was an E-Scow bashing into Full Moon’s outboard.

Lotsa boats behind.

[At least that’s the way I understand it. With one of my crew watching for overlaps and not seeing any, I drove for the mark once Selchie was clear. Anybody with an inside overlap of Full Moon would have been forced to miss the buoy to windward of Full Moon and that very clearly did not happen. The E-Scow crew, on the other hand, clearly felt I caused a problem for boats behind Full Moon, including them. If anybody can (calmly) explain that perspective to me, I’d actually like to hear it. If I could reasonably have done something differently that would have avoided getting hit, I certainly want to know. Otherwise, if you’re coming up behind a boat that is moving slower (same tack, same general course), it’s on you to avoid the collision!]

Weren't quite ready for this shot, were you?

Anyway, once around the Freeway buoy, Full Moon headed for the Gasworks shore before tacking toward the Aurora buoy. This allowed Full Moon to lay the mark without additional tacks, though it was a close thing. The Equalizer was then hoisted quickly for a fast beam reach straight to the AGC buoy. The takedown was difficult due to the wind angle but the spinnaker came down in time for a clean rounding and Full Moon headed back upwind to the north.

Marcelle likes this stuff!

The Freeway buoy was pleasantly free of traffic and Full Moon again headed for the Gasworks shore before tacking toward the Aurora buoy. This time, Full Moon overstood slightly and Westward (large C&C?) took advantage of a much longer waterline to sail past. Once the Equalizer was back up, though, Full Moon had the speed edge and, after some maneuvering, returned the favor by passing to leeward.

After another smooth rounding of the AGC buoy, it was on to the finish line but Westward wasn’t quite done. Passing to windward was not going to work (Full Moon can point pretty high!) so Westward eventually fell off to leeward. The finish line was favored at the windward end, though, and Full Moon still managed to stay (just) in front to take what we believe was sixth place.