Once is Enough

Full Moon in the prestart, just to the right of the lass on the pulpit.

With a forecast of drizzle and light wind, Full Moon crew Michael “Arrrgghhh!” Medina, Chad “Lake Barnacles” Harnish, Tina “Marlinspike” Hein, and skipper John “Graybearde” Mengedoht elected to change things up a bit for the Pirate Night Duck Dodge and join the third start, though racing without a spinnaker to make things more than equitable. After a decent start, Full Moon played the wind shifts and boat traffic, rounding the AGC buoy near the front of the pack (eventual third place finisher Where’s The Beef squeezing inside with no rights, pushing a J22 and Full Moon outside and behind to avoid collision…ahem!).

Without flying the Equalizer, it then took a while to find a good downwind groove in the very light wind, sailing high enough to keep the genoa working and low enough to make progress downwind. The wind filled in a bit approaching the Freeway buoy and Full Moon found some speed but not enough to catch the boats flying spinnakers.

Two tacks were necessary to round the Aurora buoy and then it was onto a beam reach to the finish line, third start racing for just one lap. Though the drizzle had stopped at that point, the crew enjoyed having an early night, Full Moon back at the dock and tidied up well before 9 o’clock.