Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series - Race 4
by John Burn 2 Apr 15:22 BST
1 April 2023
A North Westerly with a flood tide gave race officer Dan Bridger something to ponder as he made his course selection. Thankfully he opted to send the fleets off into The Bag as soon as possible where the breeze was both constant and substantial. Course 3-7-3-7.
Handicap fleet
Current series leader AJ had Fiona Cranford Smith as crew and luckily they had some company this week in the form of Simon Ballentine in his Aero along with Mike Hoyle and Sian Hodges in the N12.
The start was always going to be tricky as you had to avoid the big holes whilst attempting to pick up one of the gusts.
Eventually they all rounded Mark 3 and headed off on their merry way to up to Gerston.
This is where they settled into their respective positions according to handicap as they now tried to get round the course as fast as possible.
Amazingly once the final finish times were calculated there was only 8 seconds separating the three of them.
AJ Squire and Fiona Cranford Smith 1st
Simon Ballentine 2nd
Mike Hoyle and Sian Hodges 3rd
Solo fleet
I would really like to write about how our Commodore, Vice Commodore and Rear Commodore of Sailing all ended up capsizing (or as good as) but I think Im going to have to leave it there!
Saturday saw the highest turn out of the year so far with 16 Solos arriving at the start line.
As the fleet got under way John Burn found himself last to get off the line as he and Malcolm Mackley sat in a hole whilst the fleet sailed away from them.
By the time they arrived at Crossways though, John had sailed his way to the front of the fleet and rounded the mark first ahead of Paul Ellis, Chris Cleaves and David Greening.
Paul managed to get passed John on the first trip to Gerston and from there John and Chris then held station with the gap remaining constant between them. David however lost touch with the front runners and got sucked back into the main pack on the second trip back to Gerston.
As they returned into the main stretch of the harbour all that was left was to navigate the short dash to the finish without drama.
Paul Ellis 1st (making it two on the bounce)
John Burn 2nd
Chris Cleaves 3rd
Thank you to Dan and his team for running proceedings.