Anticipation was the word for the Totally Dinghy race at Richmond Yacht Club this weekend. Anticipation on Saturday of surviving the 25 knots that hit the fleets in the afternoon and anticipation on Sunday that the wind would come at all.

Saturday’s racing was fast and windy from the start and several boats were dumped. Laser sailor Simon Bell said, "I was mostly out of control as it was pretty windy. I didn't flip it though..." Simon came in a very respectable sixth out of 28 boats, a lot which DNF’ed.

On the inner course, one of the Whaler volunteers commented, “I got real tired righting the MegaBytes: too much boat in too much wind with too light a sailor. As I was righting the last boat, its skipper, almost too tired to barely hang on, said, ‘I'm getting too old for this.’ I told him, ‘You're too old - I'll be sixty next week." His dog-tired come-back was ‘I'm 65!’ Touché!”

By Sunday the predicted heat wave was trying to force its way through. Racing was postponed until 1230 for the Southampton course, and once underway it turned into a fun, windy day. The Lasers were last off the course with three solid races in the bank. A lot of new boats showed up, four Nacras and a Prindle for a Cat class, and a new Viper 640 hit the waters on its maiden race. Now there's two on the Bay for some competition.

The usual suspects of El Toros, Snipes and Bytes made for a good excuse to get out of the house to play on a nice day and not get stuck inside watching football.

A big thank you to Greg Demetrulias and Ben Mewes on the Lightning Peppermint Patty Too, Phil DeGaa Phil Krasner on the Prindle, and Mike Bishop on his Laser for taking our cameras aboard. For results in the many divisions, see www.richmondyc.org.