Missing Target

Full Moon crew Randy, Daniel, Anne, and skipper John had a decent starboard tack start for the Pink Boat Duck Dodge until fouled by Moonshine to windward who inexplicably refused to turn closer to the wind. (The windward boat is the “give way” vessel, even in the Duck Dodge…) After suffering in the wind shadow of the bigger boat and falling back, Full Moon was able to tack behind Moonshine and find some clear air near the eastern shore before tacking back out toward the middle of the lake. Search as we and other boats might, the Freeway buoy was missing in action, so it was either never dropped or was snagged and dragged by another boat.

Full Moon chases the eventual winner SYC5 (J22).

With nothing else to do, Full Moon headed for the Aurora buoy. With the Equalizer’s “turbo” spinnaker pole preset for the longer starboard gybe, the NNE wind meant spending some time with just the main and jib downwind before gybing southward and hoisting the spinnaker. Full Moon was then able to pick off a few boats, including a Harbor 20 on port gybe, which was forced to turn to avoid Full Moon coming along on starboard.

Kari J (San Juan 28) had the inside line to the AGC buoy and a conservative spinnaker drop allowed the T-bird Makima to catch up. The rounding went well until the jib sheet was fouled on the genoa lead block, with no drive from the jib. This allowed Makima and then the Harbor 20 to get past. In the end, Full Moon was sixth, still a very respectable result out of 28 boats.