Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series - Race 4
by David Greening 7 Apr 2014 14:33 BST
5 April 2014
A solid force 4 South South Easterly emerged from the mistle for the Salcombe Dinghy fleet on the 5th April. Race Officer Malcolm Mackley set a challenging course which was to take the two fleets to Blackstone three times in some seriously lumpy swell, caused by the wind over tide conditions.
Twelve Solos took to the start line, and it was young Peter Ballantine borrowing his Race Officer's boat this week, who achieved the start that everyone else had wished for, emerging from the start line on port tack, crossing the fleet of starboard tack starters and commenced to build a substantial lead.
The following pack of Hammond, Jago and Greening had a tight race for second place, rounding Gerston in that order, however on the return to the harbour Greening had ground his way into second place, and on one breezy run, looked like he might close on Ballantine's transom, but this was not to be, with Ballantine taking the winning gun when the course was shortened.
Peter Hammond moved up to third place, while Ballantine's woodwork teacher Julian Meek seized fourth place from Bill Jago, due to the latter taking an uncharacteristic spill on the final run.
The breeze had picked up to another level for the Handicap Fleet start, resulting in John and Annie McLaren having a messy capsize at Blackstone finally emerging with a broken mast and a badly torn mainsail. While almost simultaneously Peter Cook's Foxer lost its mast.
This left the race to be decided between the Lasers of Robin Hodges and Torrin Blazeby and the Laser Radial of Theo Harris. Hodges prevailed, with the Radial securing second place from Blazeby
Solo results:
1st 5183, Peter Ballantine
2nd 5301, David Greening
3rd 5271, Peter Hammond
Handicap results:
1st Laser, 174457, Robin Hodges
2nd Laser Radial, 7, Theo Harris
3rd Laser, 161391, Torrin Blazeby