Full Moon crew Randy “Halyards” Olsen, Chad
“Pickleball” Harnish, Karolyne “Damp Drop” Courville, Daniel “Boomwalker”
Mengedoht, and skipper John “Telltales” Mengedoht enjoyed a good start for the
Red, White and Blue Duck Dodge, battling with Sommerfugl (Dragon) for
much of the first leg. Unfortunately, we tacked at exactly the wrong moment
into a massive header and ended up with three more tacks before rounding the
AGC buoy behind a Rocket 22, Sommerfugl, Mr. Nibbles (Ultimate
20) and a couple of other boats.
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| Daniel holds the duck while photographing the rest of the happy crew. |
The Equalizer was soon launched, though, and
Full Moon
began to take places back while gaining on the leaders. The Equalizer got a bit
wet on the douse but not enough to slow us down and
Full Moon rounded
the Freeway buoy in the thick of the competition.
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| Daniel adds to the duck collection on the mast. Yes, we have a lot of those but we've been racing in the Duck Dodge since 1995! |
The leg to the Aurora buoy was nearly a straight shot,
though the wind was a bit light and shifty. A final tack to the buoy proved
slightly premature but
Full Moon was able to head up just enough to
round the buoy, ahead of
Mr. Nibbles. On the final upwind leg,
Full
Moon managed to pull farther ahead of
Mr. Nibbles and, a bit to our
surprise,
Full Moon got the horn for third place!