Drifting in the Dark

Full Moon is fourth across the starting line, though to leeward of a lot of boats.

Full Moon crew Ian “Beer Meister” Mengedoht, Rebecca “Mom Texts” Herivel, Daniel “Double Deluxe” Mengedoht, Kaylee “Snacks” Charlesworth, Troy “Coach” Charlesworth, and skipper John “Patience” Mengedoht opted for a relatively conservative starboard tack approach to the start for the final Duck Dodge (“Martini Night” aboard Full Moon) and this paid off somewhat in avoiding a cluster of boats on port tack at the Committee Boat. With decent wind, the fleet spread out, tacking back and forth. A final tack nailed the layline to the Freeway buoy, Full Moon pulling ahead of 22’ Anakena and overlapped on the inside of a 29’ Dragon.

Full Moon then continued north to Gasworks before tacking west nearly to the Westlake shore, then tacked north on another perfect layline to the Aurora buoy. This enabled Full Moon to round just (barely) ahead of Necessary Evil (Catalina 30) with Slingshot (J30) just behind. Unfortunately, both 30 footers came in ready to launch their spinnakers while Full Moon still needed to get the pole up, having just tacked at the buoy. This allowed both 30-footers to pull ahead and to windward.

Full Moon trails Necessary Evil and Slinghot to the AGC buoy.

Thus began a long battle south, Full Moon not quite able to punch through the wind shadow of both boats while Necessarily Evil could similarly not escape Slingshot. The good news is that all three were slowly reeling in Makima (26’ T-bird). Approaching the AGC buoy in fading wind, a Beneteau 423 from second start entered the mix. Makima made it around safely in front. A (very) late spinnaker drop on Full Moon allowed rounding inside the big Beneteau, but the ensuing cleanup also allowed them back out in front. Full Moon tacked away but by this time the wind had dropped to nearly nothing.

The final leg was agonizingly slow. Makima eventually crossed the line first, followed by Necessary Evil many minutes later. This left Full Moon and Slingshot to battle for third until Brushfiire (Mirage 24’) snuck past toward the Eastlake shore. Full Moon ultimately prevailed over Slingshot to take fourth, both boats barely moving.

Lots of boats never made it to the AGC buoy before abandoning the race.

This was Full Moon’s 30^th year of dodging ducks going back to 1995. (There were no races in 2020 due to COVID.) We sailed in seventeen out of eighteen races, skipping just one when the boat was hauled out for bottom paint. Amazingly, we also only had rain for one race in May. Keeping with tradition, twenty different people rotated through the crew, including four “newbies.” We managed to score one gold duck, two silvers, and five bronze ducks. Our average finish was 4.5 and our mean finish was 4^th place. Not bad for a 47-year-old boat!