As you probably know by now, Berkeley Yacht Club runs a double midwinter series. You can enter the Saturday series or the Sunday series; division breaks and scoring are separate.

Race Chair Bobbi Tosse reports on Saturday, January 10: “After one says how absolutely fantastic the weather was, what more can be said? The wind was a delightful 10 to 15 knots and stayed reasonably consistent the entire afternoon, the water was flat, the sun was shining and the racers appeared to know all the rules.”

The series, which began in November, is run under the old 2005-2008 rules, not the new ones, so everyone should be pretty familiar with them. The confusion will start when we’re all trying out the new ones for the first time! We invite your anecdotes about the new rules; send them by email.

Back to Bobbi’s story: “We sent 61 boats off at the scheduled time to ‘B’ on a 8-mile windward/leeward course and all but one finished. There were no crashes, no blood - nothing gory. Did I mention how nice the weather was?

“The ties and almost ties left from December have all been broken, but since this series has an even number of races, there could still be ties in a couple of the divisions after February.”

Some boats that were tied after December’s racing included Simon Winer’s Wilderness 30 Extra Action and Gerry Brown’s Mintaka 4, which were tied for first in Division B; Mintaka 4 is now in first. Conrad Holbrook’s Topper II and Vaughn Seifers’ Flying Tiger were tied for first in Moore 24s; Topper II is now on top. In Division D, Richard von Ehrenkrook’s killer Cal 20 Can o’ Whoopass and Tim Stapleton’s Cal 2-27 Ypso were tied, now the Cal 20 is living up to its name.

“Sunday, January 11: Again, the weather cooperated and produced wonderful, welcome sunshine. The wind direction and oomph had changed a bit. After a brief postponement, our 35 boats were sent on a 8-mile windward/leeward to buoy ‘G’. Unfortunately for one of our smaller boats, a Catalina 22, the decrease in oomph led him to decide to go home rather than finish.

“The story about the cumulative scores is essentially the same as Saturday’s. All the first place ties are now broken and there are still some ties for second. But things are tight enough such that anything could happen in February.”

First place ties broken in Sunday’s series were Steve Katzman’s Express 27 Dianne over Rick Gio’s Santa Cruz 27 1st Impression in Division 2, and Terry Cobb’s Brainstorm over Rachel Hadley’s Top Cat in Catalina 22s.

Complete race by race and cumulative results are available at www.berkeleyyc.org/racing/midwinters/index.html. The final regular race weekend in the double series comes on February 14-15, followed by a Champion of Champions winners’ competition on March 1.