119th Henri Lloyd Salcombe Yacht Club Regatta
by David Greening 12 Aug 2014 17:08 BST
3-8 August 2014
Salcombe Yacht Club Regatta Week kicked off on the 3rd August and provided 200 boats with southerly breezes and high tides. Some fine tuning of the event by SYC resulted in one of the most enjoyable regattas for years with excellent socials, happy hours and prize giving each evening.
Morning racing had been reformatted to provide Junior Handicap, Medium Handicap and Fast Handicap racing.
First away were the Juniors and the RS Feva of Flossie Tanner and Tabby Priestly was to prove the most successful with four wins under their belts, with Finn and Jack Johnson's RS Tera Sports fighting it out for second and third places.
Robert Russell secured five wins from Max Pearce to win the Topper fleet.
Fourteen boats contested the Laser Radial fleet, which was fought out between Elliot Marks, Greg Bartlett, Mathew Russell and Charlie Blazeby, with Elliot taking first place with four wins.
In the Enterprise fleet seasoned sailor David Beaney came to the fore, no doubt assisted by the local knowledge of his crew Caroline Evans.
In the Medium Handicap, the Streaker of Mike Eggleston dominated taking the victory from the Larks of Salcombe regulars Keri and Freya Harris and Chris Ellis and Natallie Howes.
For the first time a fleet of Yawls, formerly the Gold Fleet, raced in the morning, this was won by "Saraband" which was mainly helmed by youngsters Sophie and Isabelle Wood with tactics by their Dad, Andrew.
The Fast Handicap fleet was high quality with several former National and World Champions competing with their families, this is what Salcombe Yacht Club Regatta is about. The Merlin Rocket of Tim Fells and Andrew Peacock was top of the pile and had sufficient points in the bag not to need to sail on Friday, which must have come as a relief to Tim and Andrew since this was the lightest wind of the week.
This fleet presented the comedy moment of the week, when Peter Colclough attempted to cross the Blackstone in front of a breaking wave, and ended up being washed out of his boat, fortunately 505 and helm were later reunited.
A small but growing RS400 fleet competed within the Fast Handicap fleet, with John and Annie McLaren recording a string of firsts from David and Anne Gates; no doubt they will have a separate start next year.
Afternoon racing has traditionally been for the local classes, this allows the workers to go about their trade in the morning and to take the afternoon off to go racing!
National 12's have a long association with Salcombe and the racing was dominated by the former Henley teams of John and Mandy Thornton, John and Ollie Meadowcroft and Mike Hoyle and Emma Cadwaller.
The largest fleet of the week was the Solo class with 41 entries. It was great to see several visitors break the traditional Salcombe lockout of the top places. Things looked interesting when visitor Tim Johnson took the bullet in the first race, but a start line disqualification in the second race put him on the back foot. Tim Law and Simon Dobson eventually emerged at the top of the pile, not without incident, since Tim once again heaped the pressure on himself with a Black Flag disqualification on Thursday.
A successful initiative was to move the Standard Lasers back into the afternoon, this resulted in a larger fleet of 18 boats, and was completely dominated by Mike Calvert, who went on to win the Henri Lloyd Trophy for Sailor of the Week. The only person to break Mike's domination was Mike Hicks who scored a win on Tuesday.
The Modern Yawls had 24 entries, including Paul Ellis who had returned from the Southern Ocean in order to defend his title. It is fair to say that the competition was as good as it has ever been. Will Henderson and Jim Stone opened with a win from Paul Ellis, hinting at a repeat of last year's showdown, however as the week progressed, Paul struggled to provide consistent results, and Simon Gibbens and Andrew Reed, Frankie and Charlotte Rowsell and Malcolm Squire and Jonathan Britton all went on to win races.
A nail biting Auburn Cup, the premier race in the Yawl calendar, was held on Friday in light winds which saw several leaders, notably Clive Jacobs and Victoria Gibbens in "Chicken Run" and Charles Thompson and Alistair Morley in "Great Bustard", but eventually Henderson and Stone judged the tide perfectly to take the Cup.
Will Henderson was not the only family member having a successful week, daughter Mary sailing with mum Mandy borrowed "Swallow" from the Stones and went on to score four wins in the Yawl Classic feet, winning on count back from Anthony and Francesca Lofts.
With daily class prizes the Commodore, Judith Newman and Rear Commodore of Sailing, Gail Bridger handed out the overall prizes on Friday evening, before Solo class winner Tim Law thanked the Yacht Club for laying on such a brilliant event, paying particular reference to the Watchhouse, Rescue Boat, Bar and Catering Staff.
SYC would like to thank the regatta's main Sponsors Henri Lloyd, Coast & Country, English Braids and Portlebay Popcorn.
Overall Results:
Junior Handicap: RS Feva 3774, Flossie Tanner and Tabby Priestly
Topper: 45121, Max Pearce
Laser Radial: 201959, Elliot Marks
Enterprise: 20234, David Beaney and Caroline Evans
Medium Handicap: Streaker 1846, Mike Eggleston
Yawl: 97, Sophie Isabelle and Andrew Wood
Fast Handicap: Merlin Rocket 3764, Tim Fells and Andrew Peacock
RS400: 1421, John and Annie McLaren
National 12: 3443, John and Mandy Thornton
Solo: 5315, Tim Law
Laser: 204889, Mike Calvert
Salcombe Yawl (Modern): 183, Will Henderson and Jim Stone
Salcombe Yawl (Classic): 114, Mary and Mandy Henderson
Full Results can be found at www.salcombeyc.org.uk/dinghies/race-manager