Editor's Note: Team Waterway Guide participated in the annual Hospice Turkey Shoot Regatta on its home waters October 1-3, 2021 and sponsored a new trophy for the event.  

Under sunny, blue skies and fluky winds (3-9 knots) on the Rappahannock River the 26th annual Hospice Turkey Shoot Regatta (HTSR), one of the largest sailboat races in the Chesapeake Bay, returned to its traditional two-day race format.  Held for the benefit of Hospice Support Services of the Northern Neck and Riverside Hospice, eligible mono hulls 18 ft. or longer, and designs older than 20 years, slogged it out for two days.

This year’s 88 entries ranged from “America’s smallest yachts”—the Typhoons-- to a 43 foot Mason to Waterway Guide’s custom 1991 catboat Trick or Treat designed by artist Michael Keane, who sailed the boat for many years on his home waters in Massachusetts. Editor-in-chief Ed Tillett and crew Steven King sailed the classic catboat in day one competition but retired at the downwind mark due to poor conditions and courtesy for other vessels.

The Corinthian Award, a new trophy for the best performing cruising boat that also displayed the highest standards of sportsmanship, sponsored by Waterway Guide Media, was won by Richard Williams, his crew and family, racing Ricochet a 34' William Atkins wooden ketch. They also won the Wobbly Compass Award for the top finishing wooden boat.

The overall winner of the Virginia Spirit Trophy was Silver Fox, a Santana 20 owned and sailed by Win Schwab and Ed Richardson of the Yankee Point Racing and Cruising Club.

A joint effort of the Rappahannock River Yacht Club, the Yankee Point Racing and Cruising Club, Rappahannock Yachts, the Irvington and Lancaster County, VA community and Riverside and Northern Neck, VA Hospice Services, this regatta is the high point of this annual fund-raising campaign to benefit Hospice services.

Approximately $35,000 was raised from the event. Called a Turkey Shoot at its inception, as it was then held the day after Thanksgiving, it was moved to early October to attract more racers due to warmer weather and distance from the annual holiday.