Mercury Fleet Sails the 2026 Huntington Lake Regatta
The festivities started on Friday afternoon, July 24, with boats out practicing and tuning together. Afterward the group gathered at Baby Beach for traditional Mai Tais, normally provided by Tom Priest. However, Tom and Laura could not attend this year, and the Baldwins did a fine job with their version of a “Mai Tai,” and the Whelans provided some fine Kirkland Margaritas.
Baby Beach has a whole new generation of young ones, with Lanzafame grandkids, Hopper grandkids, two young Goodman kids and, making her first trip to Baby Beach, Katie and Kody’s new daughter Evelyn, almost 7 months old. Quite a scene.
Race one was course four: marks five, one, three and eight, finish with all marks to port. With 16 boats on the starting line some good racing was about to begin. Randy Hecht and Scott Whitney got off the line with a good start and led the fleet up the lake, with John and Michael Ravizza in pursuit. Following were Chris and Robert Lanzafame, Bill Schopp and Richard Welsh. With a close group rounding mark one, Shaum Sinawi and Brendan Bradley went toward the south shore, while others played the center. Shaum found his way into second place.
Race one top finishers were Randy Hecht 471, Shaum Sinawi 463, John Ravizza 537, Chris Lanzafame 569 and Bill Schopp 572.
Race two was the same course and similar order after the start. Randy Hecht, Shaum Sinawi and John Ravizza led the fleet around the course. Don Whelan and Jack Henry finished in fourth, and Jim and Kathy Bradley were fifth, followed by Chris Davis and Bill Worden.
Race three again used course four. Ben Bradley and Bill Schopp got across the lake toward the Boy Scout camp and led off that shore. However, Ravizza overtook them, as did Whelan, to lead the way up to mark five. Approaching mark five, Whelan was able to cross Ravizza and round the mark first. Ravizza got to the left and passed Whelan going to mark one after rounding mark three. Jim Bradley turned up the speed and passed Whelan before getting to mark eight and finished second.
Race three finish order: Ravizza, Jim Bradley, Whelan, Schopp and Ben Bradley.
Ravizza beat Hecht by one point to win the Bill Bradley Trophy. Notice how close the scores are as you go down the results. This is common in the Mercury fleet and one of the things that makes our racing so much fun.
Saturday night was a huge success, with a good dinner put on by Lakeshore, and of course entertainment by the Lanzafame Family Band.
Big thanks to Chris Krueger for the nice trophies, to Matt Jones for running our races, and to Peter and Lynn Baldwin for all their work in putting this together.
See you next year!