A Series of Unfortunate Events

Full Moon opted to run near the starting line on starboard tack and then tacked when faced with a wall of port-tack boats. This worked until it didn’t, a jumble of boats on opposite tacks playing bumper boats. Full Moon eventually bailed out entirely with a 270-degree gybe before finally crossing the starting line for the Masquerade Ball Duck Dodge. Crew Michael “Bun Dip” Medina, Anne “Always Cold” Gustavson, Leslie “Premature Release” Synnestvedt, Daniel “Crazy Pole” Mengedoht and skipper John “Shift Misser” Mengedoht then made the best of things to try to crawl back into the top ten boats. Only two tacks were needed to round the Freeway buoy, followed by a relatively straight shot to the Aurora buoy.

Full Moon is stuck in the middle with nowhere to go. Yes, several boats were over early.

Unfortunately, the wind had shifted significantly to the northeast and Full Moon’s “turbo” spinnaker pole was preset on the wrong side for the long reach south. Once the Equalizer was deployed, things improved considerably, though there was no hope of getting near the lead boats.

The Equalizer came down nicely, but several boats converged at the AGC buoy, Full Moon managing to emerge just ahead of the cluster. It looked at first that a single tack would nicely lay the finish line, but the fickle wind had other ideas, Full Moon needing one last tack at the Committee Boat to cross. In the end, Full Moon was about 10th and behind all traditional rivals, but the sun was still up, and the beverages were cold and a good time was had by all.