The second day of the Big Dinghy Regatta is much like the second day of the Big Daddy, featuring a pursuit race with reverse handicap starts. Unlike the big boats, the dinghies have two courses, go around two different islands, and can only round their marks in one direction - to port.

The Long Course takes the racers from the Richmond YC race deck in the outer harbor, around Red Rock, Southampton, Brook’s Island, and back to the start-finish line. The Short Course takes mostly smaller dinghies around Brook’s Island only. On the southeast end of Brook’s Island a bunch of snags and submerged pilings create a possible hazard to tender boat hulls - therefore the race committee allows a ‘chicken course’. Racers can choose to round an inflatable boat at the southwest end of Brook’s Island and return to the finish line. The catch is that the ‘chicken course’ is longer than the regular course - plus there’s yellow chicks on the course sheet.

Our Richmond YC correspondent reports, “Winner on the Long Course was a Hobie 20, Dionysus, sailed by Tim Parsons and Jane Stewart. Tim was obviously delighted at winning and said the last leg up the Potrero Reach was, ‘Gusty and blustery. Since we practiced in those conditions, that’s what gave it to us.’ He also described the initial legs up to Red Rock as ‘light, long and slow.’ At least he had the benefit of a fresh afternoon breeze for the last leg.

“Michele Logan won the Short Course sailing a Byte. On that same reach about two hours earlier she contended with light breezes that came from all over the place plus a pretty good flood which at one point had her going backwards. She managed to hold off the Sunfish which started after the Bytes. Michele almost won this event last year but had to disqualify herself because she missed a mandatory mark amidst all the ‘guidance’ marks. This year all the set buoys had to be rounded to port.

“Michele's on a sailing hot streak. She's the 2008 Byte Class Champion, won the 18-race RYC Midwinters last month, plus crewed aboard the ninth place finisher in the Big Daddy Pursuit Race (the Ultimate 20 Layla).

“According Richmond YC’s Regatta Chairman, Gail Yando, this event is attracting a whole world of forgotten or instantly unrecognizable one design dinghies. Using the Portsmouth best guess plus 10 second handicapping system which kept them up to the wee hours calculating starting times, the Race Committee rated a Tempest, Lasers, FDs, 5o5s, Wing Dinghies, Contenders, International Canoes, I-14s, both types of 9ers, Day Sailors, FJs, Wetas and even those Hobie 20s. This meant a lot of starts. It took about two hours to start everyone through 40 or so different starts,” each with its own horn.

One of the great things about pursuit races is that if you finish first you win. How did it all shake out? You can get complete results at www.richmondyc.org. If you missed our coverage of Saturday’s buoy racing, you can catch it here.