“They’re flippin’ like pancakes today,” said a dad who was using a telescope to watch his son sail a Laser on the Southampton course in Sunday’s second day of the Totally Dinghy Regatta, put on by Richmond YC. Saturday’s racing had ended early on the Southampton course east of Angel Island, as winds built to 20 knots and the water got lumpy even without an ebb to rub up against the prevailing wind direction.

By 12:30 on Sunday a soaking wet crew on the I-14 Crouching Skipper Hidden Crew had already come back to the dock to repair their spinnaker (dinghies don’t always have names, but when they do they tend to be clever). A Contender, also out on Southampton Shoals, dismasted and sailed into the club on jury rig. By 1:30 many more boats were filing back into the turning basin. The Wylie Wabbits and Finns toughed it out the longest, returning around 2:30.

A Flying Dutchman stuck their sails in the mud and washed them off by swimming with them in the Richmond YC turning basin.

Saul Schumski said that their FD turned turtle in Sunday’s first race. "It wasn't rougher then yesterday, we just blew it. We tried more than we could handle. When you get cocky Mother Nature reminds you."

The folks at Richmond were reminded on Saturday just how much they depend upon electricity to function, and how to make do without it. A lengthy power outage rendered the hoist useless. Fortunately lots of muscle power wandered the docks and it wasn’t hard to find helping hands. The kitchen staff put on dinner for the hungry racers by turning the gas down a bit and opening all the doors and windows - the electrical device they missed the most was their ventilation system. The beer stayed cold enough, and everyone carried on despite the inconvenience, as one would expect at Richmond YC.

Totally Dinghy is a totally large regatta, one of the biggest on RYC’s small boat calendar, with 12 one design fleets and an open class for each racing area. The largest fleet was fielded by the Lasers (28 entries), the newest by the Wetas, shiny, colorful new one-person trimarans. At their first local outing, it appeared that the Wetas are not very wet, are very stable, and are slow to tack, possibly because they are brand new and their skippers haven’t had time to tweak them yet or really learn the fine points of sailing them. Greg Gorsiski, on the race committee, described their tacking technique: “To tack they let everything go, work their way to the other side, and pick everything up again. Meanwhile everyone else is crashing and burning.”

Gordie Nash, winner of the El Toro fleet, told us about a new dinghy event on the horizon for next summer: Tahoe Dinghy Race Week, to be held the first week in August, with racing Monday-Thursday - two races per day for a total of eight races. The regatta would be hosted by Tahoe YC in Tahoe City, on the north shore. Fleets planning to attend include Santana 20s, Lasers, El Toros, Flying Dutchmen, Windmills, and maybe one or two others. Said Gordie, “You can bring the family and by the way do a little sailing. Who doesn’t want to go to Tahoe for a week?” We’re there!

Click here for complete results. For photos of the Southampton course, see www.greggorsiski.com. Erik Simonson also has more photos of both courses; see www.h2oshots.com.