Boxing Day Race at Exe Sailing Club

by Mike Rice 27 Dec 2008 10:06 GMT 26 December 2008

The plan for this year’s Boxing Day race at Exe SC was to get as many people as possible out in the club’s most popular boat – the Comet Trio. And if that included some of our not inconsiderable galaxy of sailing stars, then so much the better. In the end, event organiser Mike Sydenham (father of Richard and Lee) must have been pleased to see so many Trios make the start (even if the start was bit unorthodox, with crews lining up on the beach a good 60 metres away from the water’s edge). Twenty three of these great all-round racing, cruising and general fun-for-all-the-family boats, designed by our own Phil Morrison, took to the sunlit waters of the Exe for a one hour (sort of) pursuit race. Many were sailed by their owners but some had been lent to, er, non-Trio sailors, to make this a special event.

Ben (49er) Rhodes and father Chris (you’d never catch me in a Trio) Rhodes hit the front first and stayed there for the whole hour (now we know what he actually meant by “catch”), although they were run pretty close at time by our next generation of sailing hotshots in the shape of Tom Kinver and Alex Horlock. Phil Morrison put his faith in his own design and crewed for son Stevie (49er) Morrison. Other fathers chose to race against, rather than with, their offspring. Hence we saw Ian Williams (current world match racing champ) sailing with Nicky Groucutt, while dad Francis sailed in another Trio. Likewise Sydenham junior (Richard – America’s Cup trimmer etc etc) who sailed with our new commodore Frankie Upton.

One returning star definitely was not in a Trio – Adam May had brought one of his Moths along and was determined to give it a go on home waters. After a brief chat with the race officer Adam agreed just to go for a blast, as we would have had to wait until teatime for him to start on handicap. He sailed several rings around the fleet, skilfully avoiding the bottom of the Exe, which was getting ever closer as the tide ripped out.

Seasonal drinkies and mince pies in the clubhouse rounded off a great event.