Salcombe Yacht Club Winter Series - Race 5
by David Greening 15 Dec 2014 21:21 GMT
14 December 2014
The winter of light winds continued for the 5th Race of Salcombe Yacht Club's Winter Series, with a barely discernible north westerly breeze and a strong flowing ebb tide. Race Officer Peter Ballantine chose to send the fleet into the Bag and to Gerston.
The cognoscenti chose to start on the East Portlemouth shore, reasoning that there would be more wind on this side, and that it would lift as the fleet entered the Bag. However Jago, Greening and Dobson were proved wrong, with those who chose to short tack along the Salcombe shore feeding into the Bag will ahead of the protagonists.
Bill Jago was the only one to see the light, and crossed earlier than the rest, and worked his way through to overtake all of the fleet to emerge with a healthy lead from Bruce Hattersley, Malcolm Bell and Peter Sturgess by the time they had reached Gerston.
They maintained formation to the shortened finish line, though Bell dropped to fourth, with backmarkers David Greening and Simon Dobson never managing to make any impression.
In the Handicap Fleet, it was business as usual for Peter Cook and Janet Exelby, sailing their Merlin Rocket, who drew out a healthy lead from the Lasers of Ester McLarty and Nicky Dobson.
Solo Results:
1st 5316, Bill Jago
2nd 5453, Bruce Hattersley
3rd 4612, Peter Sturgess
Handicap Results:
1st Merlin Rocket 3616, Peter Cook and Janet Exelby
2nd Laser 181676, Ester McLarty
3rd Laser Radial 173536, Nicky Dobson