Pyrate Night

Dread Pirates Neil, Randy, and John.

Full Moon crew Randy “Warm Seltzer” Olsen, Chuck “Cabin Guy” Weldy, Chad “Cupcake” Harnish, Neil “HDR” Piispanen, and skipper John “Ate the Parrot” Mengedoht attempted a pin-end port tack start for the Pirate Night Duck Dodge but were thwarted by starboard tack boats and ended up pretty far back in the fleet before crossing the line. Once out of the wind shadows of other boats, speed picked up nicely for a straight shot to the Freeway buoy.

There was WIND!

Without immediately knowing where the Aurora buoy was located, choosing when to tack was a gamble, but Full Moon managed to make it past Gasworks and to the buoy without additional tacks. Once around, the wind seemed a bit too far forward of the beam so the choice was made not to fly the Equalizer. Unfortunately, this proved costly when the wind shifted aft and got lighter on the reach/run to the Aurora buoy.

Third start must be getting kind of scrappy given the fenders left out...

The upwind leg was very puffy and Full Moon was on the verge of rounding up a couple of times but it sure was fun! Two fairly well placed tacks were necessary to reach the Freeway buoy and then it was back across the lake to where the Aurora buoy was supposed to be? It turns out the buoy was never properly anchored and it had migrated a bit south for the second lap!

Gotta love Cake or Death's spinnaker!

This time, the Equalizer was launched after rounding and some distance made up on boats ahead, though not enough to really matter. With a clean drop and tidy rounding of the AGC buoy, it was on to the finish line, Full Moon well out of contention but having had a blast on a sunny breezy evening.

Some boats REALLY get into this theme...