Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series - Race 4

Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series - Race 4 © Margaret Mackley

Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series - Race 4 © Margaret Mackley

Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series - Race 4 © Peter Cook

A beautiful sunny, if not chilly day greeted the competitors in Race 4 of the Salcombe Yacht Club Spring series. Race officer Peter Cook set a course that involved a loop in the entrance of the harbour, followed by a speedy journey to Gerston, before returning to the harbour.

One of the joys of racing at Salcombe is that no two races are ever the same, and the feature of this race was that it was sailed at low spring tide, and whilst this did not take away from the racing the exposed mudflats at Widegates made for interesting flat out reaching always with the danger for competitors of grounding on the lee shore when bearing away in the gusts.

First away was the thirteen strong Solo fleet and those who worked the windward Salcombe shore in the gusty Force 4 Westerly fed in at the windward mark with a clearly defined leading bunch, and the lighter Simon Yates and Ed Stephens made big gains in the planing gusts, and were holding the leading places at the Gerston buoy.

However the heavy artillery in the form of Bill Jago and Chris Cleaves reeled in the lightweights on two hard beats along the Portlemouth shore, with Jago overtaking Yates and Cleaves overtaking Stephens to finish in that order.

With Peter Cook and Janet Exelby running the racing, the Handicap Fleet was missing the familiar white Merlin Rocket leading the fleet home, and there were thrills and spills particularly on the downwind legs, with some notable casualties.

However it was Charlie Blazeby in the Laser Radial who clung onto the back of the faster boats in the Handicap fleet to score a comfortable victory from Alistair Morley's Phantom which he managed to right from a prestart capsize, and Peter Colclough's RS400 taking the remaining podium place.

Solo fleet results:

1st 5598 Bill Jago
2nd 5601 Simon Yates
3rd 5573 Chris Cleaves

Handicap results:

1st Laser 203307 Charlie Blazeby
2nd Phantom 1357 Alistair Morley
3rd RS400 1329 Peter Colclough

Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series - Race 4 - photo © Margaret Mackley