2026 Richmond Midwinter #2, on 01/04/26

The Richmond Yacht Club small boat midwinter #2 was everything you might imagine for a typical midwinter race.  There was the cold and blustery wind as well as occasional sunshine and very gentle wind. There was also some pelting rain as well as king tide current chaos. Despite all this there was a solid turnout in most fleets.

Dave west, Chris Krueger, Chris Davis and David Bacci represented the Mercury fleet on Sunday. We were tempted to treat this as a match racing opportunity, but better judgement prevailed and we just decided to sail the course and the tides.West established a strong lead in race one by acing the start and choosing the advantaged side of a tide line extending through the course to the mark. Unfortunately for West there was some confusion with a course change and he missed the limiting mark before the finish allowing Bacci to pass for the win.

Race # 2 was another wind and current conundrum leaving a very close finish with Bacci ahead and West in second.

In the midst of this there were cold squalls and rain and finally sun while we waited for some course adjustments. The four of us decided it was too cold and wet and we headed in to put the boats away early and get to the social!  The weather was very pleasant for the rest of the races and many fleets stayed out for all four races with some racers trickling in throughout the afternoon.

Big thanks to RYC for doing such a great job to get the races off in such difficult weather.

Let’s get some more boats out for the next race in February as it’s a really fun venue!

By David Bacci

(4 races on 12/07/25 and 2 races on 01/04/026, results obviously cummulative)