Missed It by That Much!

Full Moon crew Randy “No Pull” Olsen, Daniel “Pull” Mengedoht, Chad “Shrimper” Harnish, Ben “Gold Hat” Spicer, and skipper John “Consistent” Mengedoht were slightly delayed for the start of the Western Night Duck Dodge due to an untied jib sheet but well positioned for clear air. While crossing the line in sixth or seventh place, this helped with gaining on the boats ahead on the first leg to the AGC buoy.

Full Moon and the Equalizer.

After rounding the buoy, the Equalizer was soon hoisted to good effect, the breeze having shifted from southwest to the west. The question then became whether the center of the course would be best or more toward the east side of the lake. Full Moon passed and then fought off the Catalina 30 Necessary Evil in the middle and was looking good to maybe take the lead when the wind veered strongly into the northwest. This made the spinnaker untenable, and the takedown was ugly, the spinnaker pulling backward then taking a bath. This allowed two boats from the east to slide ahead as well as Necessary Evil before rounding the Freeway buoy.

You can't see the finish line but Full Moon (left) was maybe 10 feet behind Necessary Evil (right).

The leg to the Aurora buoy was hard on the wind and Necessary Evil inexplicably sailed a lower course. (Perhaps they had issues of their own?) Two tacks later, Full Moon was back in front and around the buoy. The final leg was mostly a run but in much lighter wind. A spinnaker would have been beneficial but the Equalizer was a thoroughly soggy pile in the bottom of the cockpit. Necessarily Evil, on the other hand, was able to get a spinnaker up and slowly gained from behind. At the finish line, they were barely ahead to get the horn for third place with Full Moon fourth. All things considered, this was an excellent finish as there were a lot of boats behind us!