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Salcombe Yacht Club Sailing Club Series - Race 2

by David Greening 7 May 2013 14:54 BST 4-5 May 2013

With nearly 100 boats participating in different races on the estuary, Salcombe Yacht Club was buzzing over the May Bank Holiday Weekend. As well as the usual club racing, the club hosted a Gul Series National 12 open meeting, a Salcombe Yawl Open Meeting, a Laser South West Travellers Series Open Meeting as well as Cruiser Racing in the Range on Sunday.

Saturday presented champagne sailing conditions, with a force 4 south westerly breeze, high tide and blue skies, sailing in Salcombe is rarely better than this.

Fourteen National 12's competed in the four race Gul Series event. Regular visitor Tom Stewart, sailing with Salcombe local Nicky Bass scored two wins to win the event. Graham Camm and Zoe Ballantine won the last race which dashed the hopes of local sailors Peter Ballantine and Theo Harris who were pushed down to third place despite their winning the Sunday morning race.

In the Salcombe Yawls there was extremely tight racing in the Red Fleet, and by Sunday evening and the annual Yawl dinner, there was all to play for with Graham and Tessa Pike holding a narrow lead over Dan and Gail Bridger, Simon Gibbens and Andrew Reed and Malcolm Squire.

For the last race the race officer set a course inside the harbour with a leeward mark off South Sands, the light North Easterly conditions suited the Bridgers who prevailed over the Pikes, whilst Malcolm Squire moved up to third place overall by overhauling Ian McCormick to take second place in the last race.

In the sixteen boat Salcombe Yawl Blue fleet, John and Annie McLaren were predominant in the first three races, which was a good thing, because they were disqualified for being over the line at the start in the last race. Andrew Woods won the first race but did not maintain this level of performance, and finished second overall. Whist John Smithers and Peter Hughes might have recorded a better overall result had they been able to get to the start on time for the Saturday Race.

In the Saturday Club Racing, sailing in the Solo Class, Roger Tushingham led a tight pack of seven Solos that had broken away from the twenty-five starters for most of the race, however on the final run, the pack of seven was reshuffled with Tim Law emerging as the winner, with Paul Ellis screaming through on a large gust, which moved him from oblivion to second place.

With the National 12s sailing separately, the Merlin Rockets had the fast Handicap Fleet to themselves, with Peter Cook and Janet Exelby coming in ahead of Andrew and Tristan Squire and Chris Winzar and Esther McLarty.

The Laser Radials of Tom Morris, Henry Wadey and Henry Bright finished in that order in the Slow Handicap Class.

The Salcombe Laser South West Grand Prix Open was held on Sunday, race officer Geof Gilson set some challenging courses. The Laser Standard Fleet was dominated by Paul Bartlett of Starcross and Peter Scott of United Hospitals followed by Charlie Maunder from Wimbleball and Nick Stoten from Mounts Bay.

The Laser Radials battled out between Starcross and Salcombe. Tom Morris won the first two races and Torrin Blazeby won the third, both from Salcombe. As the competition increased four boats were OSC in the second race, and unfortunately none returned for the individual recall flag. Brian Tucker from Teign Corinthian won the Laser 4.7 prize.

If this was not enough, a cruiser race was held in the Range on Sunday. The X-362 "Xotic" of Ian and Wendy Stewart won on elapsed and corrected time from the Maxi 1300 "Sheer Madness" of Martin Beck and the Mystery 35 "Blue Bird" of Graham and Meredith Parker in what was a very slow race in light winds between Gara and Starehole.

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