Poo to Two

Full Moon rolls by the Committee Boat prior to the start.

Starboard tack has right of way over port tack, but this doesn’t work to perfection when there are clusters of overlapped port tack boats, some of which can’t even see the starboard tack boats coming. Third start for Sci-Fi Night was just that sort of calamity. Full Moon was forced to do anything and everything possible to avoid collisions, resulting in many close calls and countless tacks just to clear the line. Eventually, crew Randy “12:14” Olsen, Michael “11:46” Medina, Rolf “Take Down” Van Houten, Daniel “Old Pro” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Adrenaline” Mengedoht emerged from the chaos on port tack to leeward of a giant Tartan 4300 but somehow managed to claw ahead into clear air. The good news is that we were then able to lay the Freeway buoy with good speed.

Full Moon zipping along on the first leg upwind.

Full Moon delayed tacking at the buoy, waiting to cross in front of a J30. This was good news/bad news since this put the J30 in a “lee bow” position for a little while until they pulled ahead – but this allowed Full Moon to take advantage of better pointing ability. When the J30 eventually tacked back, they had to duck Full Moon while avoiding the Ranger 26 Where’s The Beef. Preparing for the final tack to the Aurora buoy, Full Moon opted to duck behind Where’s The Beef to ensure making the buoy, then rounded close behind and a bit to windward before launching the Equalizer.

Full Moon with the Equalizer.

Full Moon then slowly pulled away from WTB and began to gain on other boats. About halfway down the lake, Full Moon made it past two SYC J22s battling each other a bit too close to shore in lighter wind. On approach to the AGC buoy, Rolf wrestled the nylon monster down and Full Moon had a nice rounding onto the final leg. Full Moon slowly gained on the San Juan 24 Great Escape but not enough to get by. To our astonishment, Great Escape got the horn for first place, followed by our own horn for second! We had been certain our terrible start had doomed all hopes of a top three finish. Following in third place was the Harbor 20 Scamp. (One of the SYC J22s was actually ahead of Scamp but they hadn't checked in with the race committee before the race.)

Daniel grabs the coveted silver sticker.

Yes, we have lots of duck stickers but we've been dodging ducks since 1995...