Author: Monica Nehls
Last week was pink boat night! John Coyne, Christina Travis, and Katie Biely sped around the lake to sell pink ducks. We sold out by 7:20 and raised just shy of $1,000 to support the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. If you would like to continue your support, please check out the Pink Boat Regattas here. Thank you for your outstanding participation!
At the start of the event, the wind was northwest and expected to clock around to the north. With this in mind, we set the course for a north start and tried to set the line square the course. But really there wasn't much wind to be found.
Check-in went smoothly, and we saw great thematic apparel from Necessary Evil, Moonshine, Backslider, and Gezelig. We received flowers from Tailwind, enjoyed Safari's pink mustache on the pulpit, had a laugh with Mr. Nibbles rebranding to “Mr. Nipples”. Nicely done. "C" Cup produced bras for evening and Ignitor's boob mainsail earned each boat a pink duck burgee. However we had a run-off vote for Cake or Death (all clad in pink togas), Thundorca (loosely choreographed musical number with boxing gloves), and Spirit Bear (full crew participation and costuming in a loosely choreographed musical number with a pink pony prop). Spirit Bear pulled more votes, and won the third burgee of the night.
Starts with no wind resulted in some nice pictures and not much else.
First Start had 5 boats -- all starting boats cleanly executed their start with no drama.
Second Start had 16 checked in boats, but fewer boats started on time. Sadly, sail number 35 sat windlessly over the line. Calling their OSC resulted in a communal lamentation.
23 boats checked in for Third Start, and it was crowded -- even more so with several 2nd start boats crossing the line with them. We had a ton of boats over-early and called all the ones we could see. Folks weren't happy. We weren't happy either! If you don't give me a signal that you've heard your OSC hail, we'll try a couple more times to get your attention and then let you proceed. As Mike mentioned in the related post: no boat has an obligation to dip back below the line if you are okay with being ineligible for a podium duck.
Fourth Start had 32 boats, but with the commotion of the Third Start boats crossing the line, it made it difficult to take many notes. However, right after the 4th start horn we saw Moonshine, SYC2, Ignitor, and Dragonfly in a traffic jam. You could say the same thing for Necessary Evil, Backslider, sail 79081, and sail 3 ‘i’ 7. Just west, Shogun prepared to gently t-bone Mouse.
Fifth Start held 11 boats -- M15 and Frances started early, and M15 opted to continue on. Frances very diligently headed down to dip below the line -- it was tough to get the full boat length all the way across, so we gave them an all clear a bit early. They made a great effort with the nothing soup they were getting.
We were pleased to see Alan Johnson, going by “Windsurfer”, again this week. At some point during the race, the board bumped into the committee boat and he did a penalty turn as a show of good faith – it was cute.
Then we waited. And waited. And then we were hailed on channel 16 by the concrete barge communication to the Coast Guard that were about 50 boats coating their path on the lake. As a reminder, commercial traffic has right of way. We know there was no wind and maneuverability was limited, but if worse comes to worse, please put in your motor and GTFO.
Around the time Hydra was heading up to complete their first and only lap, we noticed Aquila due west with a full spin and booking it backwards. It was the best entertainment of the night, and we're pleased to award them with a black duck.
About 20 minutes later and adding to the general mischief, First Light motored to the finish line, skirted the line, and teased us for their loss of a Podium Duck last week before motoring off.
At 8:35 we had only finished a handful of first and second start boats and even though the wind was filling in, it was slow going. Some larger boats retired early and rafted up next to us, and at 8:45 we asked a couple of boats to buzz the fleet to communicate that we were ending the event at 9. Great Escape picked up the mark, and we began to raft in earnest.
Right as time was running out, Full Moon and Windsurfer began sculling their vessels to make the cut-off. They both received a horn as our only third start and fifth start finishers, respectively. We didn't finish any fourth start boats, and we'll hope for stronger winds for Wrestling Night.
The raft up had 25ish boats, a shorter raft than usual. We broke up on time without much hassle and appreciate everyone's continued due diligence.
No write up completed this week.
Tropical night, hosted by Ullman Sails, is a Duck Dodge favorite, usually bringing more boats to the lake than any other night of the year. This year was no different with 98 boats checking in for the event, (almost) all of which had sailors eager for the sail-thru beer hand off at the Tiki Barge in Chandler’s Cove. The wind was a northerly with very little of the normal westerly component that makes our start line so hard to please participants. This made for great starts for many boats and a nice starboard run down the line. Despite the nice breeze, we set the course for First Start to be the only start with two laps in hopes for a longer raft up with how many boats like to come out for Tropical Night, and as usual, this was our biggest raft of the year so far with 45 boats coming to the party. Our raft did drag this time around, and it was about 300’ in 6 minutes before other hooks were on the ground and holding us in place. BIG thank you to the boats that responded and helped keep us from needing to break up early.
First Start had 10 boats, most of which were right on the line at the start and in small clusters of boats vying for position. Scamp and RIP had the best starts and looked to be nearly touching as they sped across the line. RIP’s waterline and higher pointing ability quickly put a gap between them and a solid up course starting lead for RIP. Absolutely joined us for the first time this year (Welcome back!) and Freja came through from the salt to join us this week. I love seeing high performance boats with skilled crew joining us in our little informal sailing event and reminding us that serious boats enjoy non-serious sailing too! Hopefully all of you made a second pit stop at the Tiki Barge on your way around again!
Second Start saw 17 boats this week, including a couple more boats from the salt water side of Seattle’s sailing scene. This start was a super pretty start from the view of the Committee Boat, with the exception of the big boat under main only, fouling the start line and causing Mr. Nibbles to be over the line early. PLEASE make sure you’re swinging around the port side of the Committee Boat to check in once we’re in a starting sequence! 11 of the 17 boats were lined up in a nice little starboard parade down the line within 10 seconds of starting, followed by a nice, clean, almost choreographed dance of port and starboard boats heading up course to the Freeway mark.
25 boats joined us for Third Start with a large cluster of boats starting at the pin end, and a large cluster of boats starting at the Committee Boat end on port. There were around 3 boats that started on port that did not act as give way vessels to the boats on starboard, forcing Blue Jeans and a boat I didn’t get a good ID on to change tacks to avoid collision. If you’re going to start on port, please follow TaTonka or Mouse’s example on how to ensure you’re following COLREGs. TaTonka came in on port at full speed, buzzing past any of the danger zone lines of the starboard boats. Their ability to get ahead of the starboard boats was abundantly apparent to anyone in the vicinity; if you are unsure that you’ll make it, just turn down, point your bow off the transom of the boat you’re ducking, and give way to the stand on vessel. Mouse was a little too low to make it across the other boats’ bows and just stayed low, rounding up to a good course only when it was safe to do so. Kudos to those practicing good seamxnship and following COLREGs. I was not able to complete a write up last week, but I also wanted to call out Hurricane. Hurricane took the Gold Duck in this start last week, and they’re a dinghy! Great to see you out there sailing with boats much larger than you and killin’ it!
Of the 30 boats we saw in Fourth Start, there were very few that were jockeying for an established position leading up to and at go time, and the bulk of the fleet started on port, coming in from behind the Committee Boat. Even though most of you were on a port tack, there was absolutely zero fuckery that we were able to spot as you went. All give way vessels gave way and everyone headed up the course with ease. Well done skippers and crew at being aware and following the rules of the road at the start. I did catch wind (pun notwithstanding) of some chaos at the Aurora mark. Rumor goes that a large boat barged in, stalled, and drifted into the mark, forcing a whole bunch of other boats to react suddenly, putting some of them in a risky situation. While the information received was second hand, it’s good to remind folx to make sure you’re leaving room for others and please swing wide if you’re a big boat in this start. There are many experienced skippers and crew members in Fourth Start, please make sure you account for this.
Fifth Start saw 16 boats this week, one of which was a windsurfer, Allan Johnson! I think this is the most boats I’ve seen in Fifth Start… like ever! 9 of you were huddled up at the pin end of the line waiting for the horn. There was a larger boat that forced some of you to change course and to that larger boat I repeat the above sentiments. Fantastic job to our dinghies for adapting well and deftly maneuvering and getting right back on course.
Tropical night is a hard one to single out any one boat for the Black Duck. Our list of participating boats is almost as long as Freja’s mainsheet. As we should expect from a man whose moniker is “Bamboo,” Slingshot was over the top this week, towing a handmade bamboo raft with the entire boat decked out in bamboo shoots and lots of coconut bras and grass skirts. Something Fun had two people on the bow in hula themed inflatable sumo costumes, all other people aboard sporting tropical attire, and the best part… 12 carved out pineapples with 3 straws and umbrellas each, filled with a delightful blended tropical beverage. Ignitor was also on point this week with nearly everyone aboard participating in the theme and a gift of a 1500ml bottle of Rum that the Committee fully enjoyed much of over the course of the night. There were tons of boats participating in the theme, but the bribes when no one was looking certainly helped the chances. Other boats we made special note of were Happy Place, who also gave gifts and had plenty of decoration and participation, Scat with their tropical fish on the transom (loved this), Gezellig, who also attempted a bribe along with their leis and tiki torches, Beagle with the boat wearing a grass skirt, Sea Cup with the hula girls aboard, and Blue Jeans in all their tropical garb. Even Anakena dressed up for the night, and usually Ulf single hands in slacks and a button down shirt! The list of other boats participating is too long, but thank you to everyone who participated. What a fantastic night, and thank you again to Ullman Sails for putting it on, especially Chuck Skews who flew in from San Diego just for this event.
Some other housekeeping topics:
No write up completed this week.
No write up completed this week.
The wind for this event was suuuper westerly, but at least it was consistent. With how westerly the wind was, we intentionally set the committee boat further north than usual, trying to set it such that the wind was not aft enough to pop a kite at the start line, but still super beamy, making port tack the solidly favored tack for this start. Because the wind was westerly, it caused the Committee Boat to swing toward the other end of the line, shortening it by around 100 feet. If we had set the start/finish line square to the wind this week, we would have had a line running almost exactly north and south, which would have given much confusion to boats trying to finish as to which way they needed to go to cross the line properly, not to mention that we would have no chance of reading any sail numbers until everyone was on top of us. We also couldn’t drop the hook further west because in a wind shift, the Committee Boat would have likely swung into the runway buoys. We know some of you didn’t like this line, but we feel it was the best choice for the conditions.
First start saw 6 boats, most of the usual suspects were there, and a new usual suspect Humdinger was back out on the water! The starting box had too many boats that were not in the start, and I tried to chase them off as best as I could for you all. Scat had a fantastic start, right on the line. Humdinger came in from behind the committee boat from a downwind reach to a beam reach, flying across the line almost all the way powered up already and scooting down course with a quickness.
Second Start saw 9 boats, a third of which were trying for a start right on time but ended up over early. Poor Sommerfugl had a tough time turning back around and getting back across the line, but they made it and sailed on, quickly catching up to the back of the Second Start Fleet.
Third Start brought 21 boats this week. I was super impressed with all of you in this start this week; Lemony, Summer Sled and Blue Jeans were all running the line vying for position, but the best start was from Little Kai, rolling across the start line fully powered up in the beamy breeze, Slingshot hot on their tail.
Fourth Start had 29 boats this week, with Far East, Granddaddy and Déjà Vu showing the rest of the fleet how to be across the line at the right time. Far East, like some of the other starters, took advantage of the beamy breeze and rolled across the line already powered up.
Fifth Start had 9 dinghies this week, Tomato Soup being the best start of the night for this fleet, just barely nosing down off the line less than a second before the horn and coming right back up, nearly fully powered. I think Frances was over early this week, but somehow we missed it and didn’t call them back. The dinghy fleet was super spread out at finishes this week, with large gaps between each of the first three finishers as well as the remainder of the boats in the start. We were impressed at how quickly you all came in this week, it was perfect breeze for your boats.
There were fewer boats showing spirit this week than what we usually see, and some creative interpretations of the theme. The theme this week was “Red White & Blue”, giving obvious 4th of July vibes. The Temptress, however, had two folx on the bow in traditional indigenous garb, playing traditional drums, and singing. This was powerful, and I had a physiological response when I saw you come by. Thank you for paying homage to the fact that we are on indigenous land and celebrating what I assume is the culture of those on the bow. Even though this was powerful and deserved mention, the Black Duck was selected by committee to go to Slingshot. Slingshot was way over the top and if any of you saw them out there, it would be obvious why so many of our volunteers raised their hand to select Slingshot for the Black Duck.
BIG THANK YOU to TaTonka for picking up the start mark, and to Jolly Roger for setting a second hook without being asked! We had the biggest raft of the year this week, with 38 boats (more than half the whole fleet!) tying up.
I’m sorry I have not had the opportunity to sit down and do a complete write up for the last couple of weeks, but I thought I would mention some things ahead of today’s event.
Last week we saw a lot of barging boats at the start. A large number of boats started on starboard, and many of them were forced to change direction by boats on port. This is very evident in the drone footage that was shared by John Harris from last week. I’d like to remind everyone that a sailing boat on a port tack is the give-way vessel to a sailing boat on starboard. Make sure you have someone on your bow watching for traffic and calling out to the helm to let them know what the helm can’t see. This was not isolated to inexperienced sailors, but happened in First Start as well. Kudos to Leo Kai for their dance with Thundorca and the boat to their leeward (Blue?). Beautiful avoidance, even though they were the stand on vessel in a port/starboard situation.
If you happen to be in a collision during the event, try to get the other boat owner’s information but if you are unable, remember that the event organizers on the Committee Boat are the most likely people to be able to connect you to the other boat. I implore you to try to find peaceful resolve between you and discourage you from going to Facebook to lambast people and call them names. This doesn’t look good for your character and may pose challenges in finding reliable crew.
We all do this for fun. Boats, as precious as they are to us, are just stuff; stuff can be repaired or replaced. Maintaining rage and anger when your stuff gets broken and people are willing to find resolution only makes our happy little events unpleasant and no longer fun for you, your crew, or other participants. We are a community, arguably one that is more tightly knit and stronger than many of the sailing clubs in the area. Remember this, and remember that your actions serve the community as a whole, whether those actions are out of kindness, or out of malice.
If you are unfamiliar with COLREGs, you should be familiar. Duck Dodge does not follow the Racing Rules of Sailing, we instead subscribe to COLREGs. If you need to learn more or need a refresher, you can find the COLREGs at the link below.
https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/COLREG.aspx
No write up completed this week.
50 years of Duck Dodge and we couldn’t have asked for a better night of funky fresh breeze! The Beaufort 4 Moderate Breeze held for the whole night from the north. The breeze was strong enough I was concerned our drone pilot wouldn’t be able to fly, but instead we got some amazing footage and the stars almost looked like the footage was sped up with how quickly all the boats were moving! Tons of you dressed up and showed your spirit, disco music, shiny clothing, tie dye, and wild afros galore.
The “L” flag appeared to be successful this week, with only a few boats having missed the message. For those of you that may have missed it, we are now displaying an “L” flag when the Committee Boat is fully anchored. You’ll see this flown from the rail on the upper level, aft section of the boat. It’s hard for you to tell when the Committee Boat is still backing up to set the anchor, this will help alleviate risk of collision with the back of the boat and let you know we’re ready for you!
Setting the Start/Finish line this week was a challenge as the wind had a strong westerly component to it during check in, but clocked more northerly just before starts, making the line almost perfectly set with a runway into Terry Pettus Park and favoring a starboard tack for many boats. Many boats starting on a port tack saw big challenges if they were near the committee boat, with the breeze setting them back when they were forced to tack by starboard boats; we even had a collision with the Committee Boat as a result. If you are used to starting on a port tack, please remember that we have been trying to set the line such that port tack is not favored. Please review your strategies accordingly! The line was a little shorter than we would have liked, but the airplane buoys prevented us from going longer.
First Start saw 5 boats this week with some of our usual suspects missing and Madrona joining us. Madrona is a well known boat out on the salt and is super quick and nimble. In true Madrona style, they flew around both laps of the course with ease and a large gap between the next boat, claiming the Gold Duck this week. Solara decided to go First Start this week and the breeze was just right for this big boat to take advantage of its LWL to secure the Silver Duck. Not far behind Solara was Thundorca, taking the Bronze Duck with breeze favoring larger boats.
Second Start saw 10 boats with all but two of them attempting to start on starboard. Sommerfugl had some sweet moves at the start vs Necessary Evil, forcing them to tack to port, which put them OCS and needing to duck a couple of starboard boats before they were able to come back to starboard and head down course. Leo Kai took the Gold Duck, landing on the podium for the 3rd time this season! Leo Kai was new to the scene two years ago and has since improved greatly! I applauded them last year for seeing improvement, now I’m excited to see that pretty big boat play with the fast ones! Well sailed! Rawhide flew around the course and secured their Silver Duck with Sommerfugl shortly behind them for the Bronze.
Third Start brought 21 boats, a large portion of them near the pin end of the line at the final countdown to start. There were a few boats that were right on the line when the horn went off. Of those I was able to quickly identify, Even Keel, Moonshine, and Tailwind were all clustered at the pin at the horn, but none were over early and all had a great start. As Third Start was crossing the line, the wind decided to lighten and made it difficult for some of our boats to get across the line, but in the end, everyone made it to the course side! All three boats that took stickers in this start landed on the podium for the second time this season; Makema, Spirit of the Wind, and Slingshot. Well sailed to all three of you! I see a Second Start in your near future!
Fourth Start was our largest group, as usual, bringing 34 boats for 70’s night. This start was the nicest start of all of them for the largest number of boats. Several boats were right on the line at the start and a couple were on port, threading the needle between starboard boats to get course side with a real nice start. Nicely done, Déjà Vu, Great Escape, Thistle Dew, Lemony, and Mz Replicant. If you keep up with starts like these, you’ll be in Third Start before you know it. Well done to our podium takers, SYC 2, B.A.NANA, and Déjà Vu!
Fifth Start was a day for brave dinghy sailors, with 9 boats showing up. While the breeze this week was great for the heavy boats with waterline, it was also great for the little boats zip zippity zipping around the lake! This was a fun and exciting start with some skillful positioning and dodging to find the right slot across the start. The lightweight boats were able to soar around the course for this event, with our first three finishers coming in ahead of the starts ahead of them. The moderate breeze posed challenges for some, with the crew of Beòthail arriving to the raft soaking wet after capsizing on the course. Pteranodon finished before the first Third Start boat, securing a Gold Duck! Wounded Moose Deuce snuck up behind us from the other side of the lake and took the Silver Duck right out from under Frances’s nose, but Frances still got the Bronze.
The Black Duck was sought after by many this time around. Our top three contenders for the Black Duck this week were Happy Place (your bribe almost sealed the deal), Mz Replicant, and Safari. Committee’s choice for the night saw the Black Duck going to Safari for the week. Other boats of mention (and I’m sorry if I missed taking your boat name down in my notes!) were Mischief, Thundorca, Mouse, Necessary Evil, Blue Jeans, Freya, Beagle, Snow Goose, the boat that had the fox fur (my phone autocorrected the boat name to “Lives” which I know is not right), Breeze Bandit, Echoes, Great Escape, Slingshot, and Beòthail. Thank you to all of you for celebrating the 50th year!
For Mardi Gras I’ll be aboard Safari, sailing in the event! Please be nice to your Committee Crew! Some of the most experienced folx on board are not here for Mardi Gras and those that have been working hard to train and get up to speed will be taking care of you!
This week’s wind was a little all over the place in terms of strength with a lot of wind on then off again, then on again, then off again. Being a southerly, it allowed for a start line that was nicely square to both the wind and the course. This week was Commodore’s Ball (aka Prom Night) and there were many fantastic boats on theme, but more on that later!
We had several boats that were not in First Start this week that were within the starting box when First Start was in sequence. Please remember to keep the starting box clear for your fellow sailors until you are in sequence.
First Start was a little bit of a slow one, but we had Scat and Thundorca on the pin end of the line battling it out for position. The slow motion of getting there didn’t leave much room for Scat to push Thundorca out of the way and both boats were able to start cleanly. The only other two boats in First Start this week were Spirit Bear and Mischief, both of which are not classically First Start boats. Mischief hosted a photographer from The Seattle Times and went with the first boats to make sure that the rest of you were able to get some good photo ops as you sailed past. Our First Start boats had a hard time at the Aurora mark this week with a doldrum surrounding that corner of the lake. There was an obvious windline going diagonally from China Harbor to Gasworks that stalled this fleet and made for a super challenging final leg. We finished these boats on the first lap as the wind was just too light to send them around twice.
Second Start saw 9 boats with more than half of them coming down the start line with their hulls just barely on the correct side of the line and the wind having filled in temporarily to help them get some speed. Bad X-Ample had timing that was just barely off and dipped above the line 2 seconds before the starting horn. They were called as over early and quickly dipped below the line and were back across to the course side in less than 30 seconds later with a deftly performed maneuver. As Second Start boats started to round the Freeway mark the wind filled in and continued to fill in, making that windline that hurt First Start slowly move all the way to our Aurora pin. Leo Kai was PLOWING through water as they headed to Aurora on a beam reach; their bow wake almost reaching the top of their freeboard as they speeded to the next mark. Ragin’ Cajun, you’ve podiumed 3 times in Second Start and are now promoted to First Start for at least two weeks. Iskra, you were promoted to Second Start after your podium last week and ended up taking the Silver Duck! Nicely sailed!
Third Start saw 15 boats this week. The wind decided to go light again for Third Start and over three quarters of Third Start was bunched up down at the pin end of the start line, just trying to get there and get acoss. Those that started on the boat end of the line this week had nice clean air. We caught a glimpse of Honey Bee on their downwind run lookin such fast, much winningness. If that boat had a slightly different hull shape and a little less weight, you looked like you could have been planing! This downwind sled ride proved to be enough to secure the Gold Duck. B.A. Nana, you’re free to return to Fourth Start this week if you desire.
Fourth Start saw 19 boats, but only a couple were at the line at go time. The wind stayed light for the Fourth Star and almost all of this fleet crossed the line a full minute after the horn and a few boats still behind the start line at the Fifth Start horn. Except for a couple of boats, this entire start was on starboard, heading straight to the line with mostly clear air. After we got all of the starts off and across the line and were able to start looking around the race course, we saw your slow parade around the AGC mark, which is usually not a hole when we have a southerly. We felt for you, but despite the light wind you all managed to march around that mark and head to lee. We saw a new boat on the scene this week for Fourth Start that I predict won’t be a Fourth Start boat for long. Echoes comin in hot and taking a Gold Duck home.
Fifth Start saw 5 boats this week. This was a great day for the dinghies! The light wind was no challenge for them as they maneuvered for position at the pin end of the start line. Frances and Beòthail lagged a bit behind on the start but quickly got across the line and started their trek around the course. Most of the dinghies were able to get around the AGC mark before much of the Fourth Start fleet with the lightweight hulls lending all the advantage in the soft breeze.
The Black Duck this week had a few solid contenders. There was less participation in this theme than I had anticipated there would be, but those of you that did participate did a bang up job; even one of our dinghies, Duck Soup, had a tux tee shirt on! There were several boats that had at least one Commodore aboard, Granddaddy with an old school Commodore get up, Necessary Evil with a paisley smoking jacket and captain’s hat, and Backslider making that ascot look gooood. The Temptress was in fantastic fancy black dress across the whole boat, even with a gator wearing a dress. Spirit Bear nearly took the Black Duck with two of their nicely dressed crew dancing on the bow of the boat, but the winner of the Black Duck this week was dressed with class, had a decorated boat, and even a chandelier. There are many more of you that participated, and we thank you all for lookin dapper A.F.!
The next event, tonight, is our Decades celebration for 50 years of Duck Dodge! I hope to see so many of you dressed up in your best 70s attire, but for you hippies, please remember that cannabis is still not legal on the water, and remember that even prescription Disco Biscuits don’t make for safe boating!
We’ll have a new flag on the Committee Boat to signify when we’re ready for you all to check in. Please familiarize yourself with the “L” flag and wait to approach for checking in until you see it hoisted!
No write up completed this week.
This week we had a soggy slog getting our Committee Boat, fondly known as The Quacken, from her home slip out to our playground. Fortunately, the rain let up and stayed away from about half an hour before starts all the way to the end of the raft! The rain scared away more than half of our usual number of boats with only 33 vessels with hardy sailors aboard crossing the start line. The wind was southerly, far less common than our normal northerly, which made setting up the line square to the wind and square to the course much easier. We set things pretty far off the shore this time and plopped The Quacken right about where the mid-lake buoys will be starting this coming Tuesday. Relish this start line, the north wind start line is much harder to make you all happy with! Between not having our longest days yet and the chilly, rainy weather, we decided to send everyone around only once. The wind stayed on for the whole event, albeit gusty with many shifts, and sped boats around the course with ease. Identifying our finishers was easy this week with most boats finishing within the same cluster as the rest of their start and large gaps between the clusters. AGC wasn’t even a wind hole!
Our First Start this week had 3 boats: Scat, Thundorca, and Spirit Bear. Scat’s start this week was beautiful with a tack over to starboard and leeward of Thundorca 10 seconds before the horn and fully powered up across the line almost right on the horn. Scat took the Gold Duck, followed by Thundorca with the silver. Thundorca, it was good to see you back out. We were wondering where you had been, and we missed you at the raft up! Spirit Bear persevered and managed to finish the course for the Bronze Duck on Levi’s Birthday! Happy Birthday, Levi! It was great to see that old, heavy ketch out being sailed in Duck Dodge!
Second Start had 4 boats this week with Rajin’ Cajun out in front right at the start. The heavier winds made for an upwind challenge for our two lighter boats, but holy hell on the downwind Mr. Nibbles was pulling a “Hey Diddle Diddle” moment and those cows were nearly flyin over the moon! If they weren’t planing they looked close to it. Leo Kai took the Gold Duck this week zipping around the course with significantly more LWL and wind that was just right for their boat. Rajin’ Cajun took the Silver, outpointing their competition, and Mr. Nibbles took the Bronze.
Third Start was only 9 boats this week, but there was some fierce competition and 7 of the 9 of you were pretty close to the line at the start! Solara came rolling in late to the game for Second Start and cleaned house in Third for a Gold Duck. Iskra sailed through the finish with no one close behind for a Silver. Slingshot and Necessary Evil battled it out hard for the Bronze Duck. Somehow Slingshot managed to catch a wind line that had them pointing at least 30 degrees higher than Necessary Evil, laying the finish line, and it was enough to secure the Bronze.
Fourth Start was our largest start this week with 14 boats. Two of the boats had fantastic starts, with True Blue (?) right on the line and turning up exactly at the horn. Textbook start. Our first two finishers were yellow boats, TaTonka and B.A. NANA taking gold and Silver respectively followed by Mambo for the Bronze. B.A. NANA is new to the Duck Dodge scene and still figuring out which start is right for them. This week is the third week they’ve podiumed and B.A. NANA is promoted to 3rd start for at least two weeks! You may choose to return to 4th start after those two weeks, but I’m guessing you may find 3rd start to be a good place to stay.
Fifth Start had only 3 boats on the water this week, understandably so! With the winds the way they were, flukey and coming from an inconsistent direction, it was enough to be a challenge to the most skilled of dingy sailors. Our three boats were Bèothail, Hare, and Frances. These little boats sure can scoot! Y’all kept right in pace with the starts in front of you and Bèothail and Hare crossed the line within a few seconds of one another with Bèothail claiming the Gold Duck with their decoy-keg-cup-holding mascot in tow, and Hare the Silver. Frances saw some trouble on the course as they approached the first leeward mark, capsizing and finding difficulty righting. Two boats, Thundorca and Bad X-ample both went to render assistance, with Bad X-ample helping Frances recover from a turtle. Frances seemed no worse for wear, getting right back to sailing and finishing the course in no time to get their Bronze.
Thank you for showing good seamxnship and assisting another vessel in need Thundorca and Bad X-ample!
We had some fantastic team spirit this week for the theme, Skipper’s Choice. Gratitude looked like the Beach Bois with their Hawaiian shirts, Necessary Evil brought in a bit of some anti-Bowser energy with their Mario masks, Treedom was out producing oxygen for us with their trees, and Spirit Bear was all decked out to celebrate Levi’s birthday! There were two that took the cake for me this night though, Mambo and Mr. Nibbles. Mambo’s theme was Dia De Los Muertos and they did an amazing job with costuming. Mambo was my pick for the night, but alas we choose the Black Duck by Committee. Mr. Nibbles was udderly ridiculous in their cow onesies and won over the rest of the committee with their flying ice cream sandwiches (Nice recovery of the ones in the water!).
The raft was small, but intimate with only 10 boats rafting. The wind made for a much longer raft up time frame this week and I really had a great time meeting new faces and getting smiles and hugs from familiar friends.
John Harris did a fantastic job with our drone footage, as usual. Thank you for flying that drone whenever you can for us, John! Also big shout out to our mark setters. Thank you True Blue and Thundorca! Thank you TaTonka for grabbing the start mark!
It's not lookin like it's in the cards for a write up for last week before tonight's event, but I will offer up a couple of notes and takeaways!
Remember that we subscribe to COLREGs for our events and that a boat on a starboard tack or that is leeward of another boat on the same tack is the Stand-On Vessel and the other boat is the Give-Way Vessel. This is called out in Rule 11 of the COLREGs. I call this rule out relating especially to our starts. The size of the Stand-On Vessel does not matter, big boats are to give way as well. FREEDOM, well done with your skillful dodging and mindfulness of COLREGs.
Big shout out to our Black Duck winner, Mischief! Other boats in the running for the Black Duck were TaTonka and Skäl. Also, VERY cleaver interpretation of the night, Pices! One Z made the committee chuckle!
I know this is super late, so please forgive the tardy post. This last week has been hellaciously busy.
Last Tuesday marked the first of 18 on-the-water Tuesday night events for the 50th year of Duck Dodge! We had gorgeous weather, and at least a little breeze.
The theme of the night was Committee Appreciation. As many of you know, this is one of two nights where our participants make small cash donations and donate libations and snacks for the Committee Boat for the year. This is where we get most of our funding that allows us to be able to get supplies for the year. This year we also had a direct donation link for fuel for the Committee Boat, which garnered almost enough to fill both fuel tanks! We definitely felt appreciated after this event. Between your kind donations and the sponsorship we were able to get this year, Duck Dodge is getting a much needed equipment refresh! Your outpouring this year left us feeling as though we are doing a good job by this community and that you've shown us your appreciation by everything that you bestowed upon us.
The sailing portion of this writeup will likely be short as I was trying to take the best notes I possibly could to keep track of everything that was donated to be able to recognize you.
1st start saw 3 boats, one of which is the Andrews 70 we saw at the last Lake Union sail of the season last year and at Rum Run, but under a different name. We also had Scat and Spry. When we chose the course for the day, we set 1st start as twice around thinking it would be no problem, but it proved to be too little wind for Spry who would have gotten a Bronze duck. Spry, we didn’t see you again after the first lap! Hope everything is okay.
2nd start saw 12 boats, the port tacking boats at the start seeing a better course, but Runaway just a little over early. Looks like you had a hard time finding a good window to dip back below the line, Phil and Crew, but you made it! The failing breeze didn’t help. Lift Ticket flew around the course, finishing WAY ahead of the rest of the start and coming in at almost the same time as Scat finishing their first lap.
3rd start saw 19 boats. Once again, the port tack was favored and about half a dozen boats elected to start right at the committee boat, with the likes of Ignitor crossing only a couple seconds late in nice clean air. No one over early and the breeze came back strong enough to get all but one of the late starters across before the 4th start was on the line rarin to go. Mr. Nibbles was way in front of this fleet to secure their first Gold Duck of the season.
4th start saw 23 boats, with everyone super spread out. Only a small portion of this fleet was on the line at go time and there were many stragglers as the dinghies started getting set up to go. We saw a significant wind shift to the west for this start that made starboard tack feel like boats were moving backwards.
5th start saw 15 boats with Pooka over the line a little early, coming back on starboard to force one of their competitors to tack away from the line and almost pushed them to the point of Committee Boat avoidance.
In total, we saw 58 boats for our season opener. The light is still failing somewhat early, but we were able to get all the finishes we were able to get just as boats started coming in to raft. The wind definitely got light as the sun went behind the hill and lighter boats still trying to finish had quite the advantage.
After we got everyone started we were able to start going through the bounty of gifts from all of you and start sorting out what came from whom. For those of you who wrote your boat names on your gifts, THANK YOU! This made our job so much easier. There were so many of you that we wanted to give Black Ducks to for this night, but we had to pare it down two boats so we didn’t hit our Black Duck stock too hard right at the beginning of the season. Our Black Duck winners were Blue Jeans and Skäl. Blue Jeans was our top cash donator as well as providing us with some fun snacks and a vintage duck toy! Skäl gave us a huge bundle of prop cash, a dollar sign bag full of cashews, another dollar sign bag full of gold chocolate coins, plus a cash donation. Other boats we wanted to give black ducks to, but had to pare down from were Necessary Evil, Safari, Scat, Mr. Nibbles, Sea Elegans, and Spirit of the Wind. There were so many more boats that showed their support for the Committee, but my list is 35-40 boat names long. Thank you so much to everyone who showed their support and helped set up the Committee for providing a successful Duck Dodge season!
John Harris is our Drone videographer again this year and did an excellent job with the footage that can be seen in a post further back.
Big thanks to Déjà Vu for picking up our start line mark at the end of the night! We ended up with 23 boats on the raft and the general atmosphere was joyous and happy. I’m looking forward to what Onsie night brings tonight!