Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series - Race 1
by David Greening 18 Mar 2014 10:39 GMT
15-16 March 2014
The weekend of the 15th March was a busy one for the dinghy sailors at Salcombe Yacht Club. Multiple Solo National Champion and North Sails Guru Charlie Cumbley headed up a training weekend which included a tuning session, video race analysis and on water training for the club's Solo fleet.
Salcombe's micro climate meant that there was a South Easterly force 0 to 2 in the main harbour and a North Westerly force 2 to 4 in the bag, which coupled with a Spring flood tide, provided challenging routing decisions for the twenty or so competitors in Saturday's Club races.
The Race Officer set a course to Blackstone then Gerston, followed by two loops of the harbour.
The Solo fleet was first away, with divided opinion on whether it was better to start off the Salcombe shore or the Portlemouth shore.
Peter Hammond and Charlie Cumbley (who was guesting in the class captain's boat) led off the start line at the Salcombe end, which proved to be the better side, with the Portlemouth starters feeding into the back of the fleet by the windward mark.
This first group of five boats drew out a substantial lead by the time that they returned to the harbour, but the graveyard that is the Portlemouth ferry steps allowed some of the back markers to come back into the game, the biggest gains being made by Julian Meek.
In the light airs off the beaches, Peter Hammond and Bill Jago battled out for first place, with Hammond eventually securing top spot.
In the handicap fleet a small but select group of boats took to the water. Kerry Harris was successful in building up a substantial lead in his Laser with Robin Hodges Laser finishing sufficiently far ahead of the Yawl of Andrew Wood and Stephen Page to secure second place.
Race 1 Results:
Solo
1st 5271, Peter Hammond
2nd 5316, Bill Jago
3rd 5317, Julian Meek
Handicap
1st Laser 159448, Kerry Harris
2nd Laser 174457, Robin Hodges
3rd Yawl 97, Andrew Wood and Stephen Page