McNish Classic Yacht Race namesake remembered
Tracy Lehr
OXNARD, Calif. (KEYT) A Celebration of a life well lived took place for the late Richard D. McNish on Saturday.
Sailors from up and down the coast attended the celebration at the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club in the Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard.
The club hosted has hosted his namesake McNish Classic Yacht Race 48 times.
McNish raced a classic yacht named Cheerio II that was once owner by movie star Erroll Flynn.
The award-winning sailor and developer kept it in Bristol condition
Friends and family shared stories about how he developed River Ridge in Oxnard and how he loved to share his love of sailing.
His daughter Leslie said he was also a ham radio operator and she read a letter thanking her father for saving a sailor’s life by communicating with the Coast Guard during an emergency.
His Son Jeff McNish said there was more than sailing to celebrate.
“It is a celebration of his life, we are happy to have had him as long as we did and in the course of preparing it I have been revisiting learning, made aware of the many things he accomplished which, some of it is sailing related some of it has to do with real estate in Oxnard, some of is has to do with his being raised in Santa Barbara, going into world war two when he was 17, he caught the end of the war in the Navy and the South Pacific going to Cal Poly, coming out working in agriculture and making the transition into real estate in the 1950s,” said Jeff McNish, and the stuff he learned there and the respect he had for the people, he knew and the appreciation and joy he had for everything he accomplished in his life, I mean it is very much worth celebrating.”
Friends shared the nicknames he gave them.
They called him a true gentlemen who was never judgemental.
Some of his five grandchildren hung out on the cheerio too at the dock.
The winner of McNish Classic wins their weight in champagne and McNish was often a winner.
Some of his five grandkids sat on Cheerio II at the dock before the celebration and taco lunch.
The race committee said in July, the 49th McNish Classic Yacht Race would take place and add Memorial to its name.
McNish died in November at the age of 98.
For more information visit https://pcyc.org