Touch N' Go

It will soon be much closer than this at the start.

Full Moon crew Randy “Pleasure Point” Olsen, Michael “Cabin Boy” Medina, Anne “Birthday Girl” Gustavson, Daniel “Seizure Story” Mengedoht, and skipper John “Shhhhh” Mengedoht set up for a starboard tack start like most of the fleet for the Band Night Duck Dodge. This was complicated by a boat that was essentially stalled and very much in the way of a lot of boats. Then Necessary Evil (Catalina 30) pushed up from leeward, making side to side contact several times with Full Moon, which had been dealing with another boat to windward. I could drone on about rules, but an essential one is that hitting another boat is not okay if it can be avoided… Thankfully, there was no damage.

Boys on the Boat - Daniel, Randy, and Michael.

Full Moon did eventually pull clear to windward and gained sufficient room to tack in front of a Harbor 20. Things were then looking very good, with only Tailwind (Capri 25) apparently in front but a J22 and Makima (Thunderbird) were on a tighter line to the freeway buoy and Full Moon rounded in fourth.

The boats behind will soon be much farther behind!

It was a straight shot to the Aurora buoy. Once around, it took a minute or two for a gybe set but then it was onto the reach/run to the AGC buoy with the Equalizer. Full Moon gained a bit on the leaders and quite a bit on the boats behind, but it wasn’t enough to change positions. With a clean drop at the buoy, Full Moon headed upwind for the finish to place fourth.