Invisible Buoy

The fire boat Chief Seattle greeted the Duck Dodge fleet.

The Pride Night Duck Dodge featured decent wind and sunny skies. Full Moon crew Michael “Historic” Medina, Daniel “Gordian Knot” Mengedoht, Anne “Dry Drop” Gustavson, and skipper John “Legendary” Mengedoht set up for the favored port tack start as starboard tack would barely cross the line. Unfortunately, several boats opted for starboard tack anyway and Full Moon had to duck a few then tack as well. When the dust settled, Full Moon was about eighth, though several positions were regained on the upwind leg.

Chasing down other boats with the Equalizer.

After rounding the Freeway buoy, Full Moon suffered in the wind shadow of a large Catalina until finally crawling a bit to windward at Gasworks. A few more boats were picked off on this leg, which ended in confusion as nobody could find the Aurora buoy!

Full Moon chases down Tailwind.

Heading south, the Equalizer was quickly launched to good advantage, Full Moon passing another boat or two including a T-bird and, nearing the AGC buoy, the speedy Capri 25 Tailwind. While the spinnaker came down cleanly, the pole ended up fouling the jib sheets and both Tailwind and the T-bird passed by during the untangling. Once detangled, Full Moon caught the T-bird again and gained on Tailwind but not enough. Much to our surprise, though, Tailwind got the horn for first place with Full Moon second for the silver duck! Looks like we’ll be in second start for the next few races…

T-bird and Tailwind chasing Full Moon with flogging jib.