Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series Race 7
by Allan Willcox, John Meadowcroft & David Greening 20 Apr 09:55 BST
18 April 2026
Short Handicap Fleet report (by Allan Willcox)
With spring finally delivering on its promise, Saturday lunchtime brought *beautiful* conditions to the Salcombe ria — flat water at low tide, a warm sun overhead, and what the forecast had billed as light winds.
In practice, the breeze had other ideas, serving up something gustier and occasionally stiffer than advertised, with the passage through the bag on the way to mark 7 proving particularly shifty and capricious.
Six ILCA 6s and two ILCA 4s launched for the seventh and final race of the Spring Series, with the course set as 1-7-1-3-2-3. Race Officer Dan Bridger, reading the conditions astutely, shortened the ILCA fleet's course to 1-7, sparing the fleet what would have been a lengthy thrash in the building breeze.
Andrew Groves, Charlotte Simmonds, and Simon Dawes made the pick of the starts and led the fleet to mark 1 in a tight cluster. By the time the leaders rounded, the order had settled to Andrew, Charlotte, and Allan Willcox, and so it would largely remain.
On the run Charlotte took the initiative, threading her way down the Portlemouth shore while Andrew held a centre-channel line — a tactical split that kept the pressure firmly on and produced some entertaining exchanges between the two. Charlotte led for a spell, but ultimately could not quite reel Andrew in, and he held on to take the win, with Charlotte second and Allan third.
The long close reach out to mark 7 proved awkward in the shifty gusts, but it was amply rewarded on the return leg — a broad, exhilarating run back in strengthening air. The beat back to the shortened finish against a now weakly flooding tide rounded off a race that was rather more demanding than the forecast had suggested, and all the better for it.
Karen Ballantine and Suzy Andrews — both racing ILCA 4s and making their first appearances of the season — were warmly welcomed back to the fleet, Karen crossing fourth on corrected time. Behind the leading trio, the racing was anything but processional. Steve Walter, Emily Hoar, and Simon Dawes conducted a spirited three-way battle, trading places and racing within boat lengths of each other for much of the race. Emily capsized near the finish, and Simon, aboard the borrowed Monkey Business, was let down by gear failure and had to retire. Steve Walter, bringing welcome new depth to the fleet having transferred from the Yawl fleet, came through to claim fifth.
With Race 7 in the books, the Spring Series is settled. Allan Willcox takes the series title, with Andrew Groves second — having claimed three race wins across the series — and Janet Hawkins third. The ILCA fleet is looking in rude health: Steve Walter's arrival from the Yawls, Simon Dawes's welcome visit, and Karen and Suzy's return to the water all bode well for the racing ahead.
With thanks to Race Officer Dan Bridger, the safety boat teams, and media team Lucy Burn — ably assisted by the irrepressible Roz.
Fast Handicap Fleet report (by John Meadowcroft)
Spring is in the air in Salcombe and that means different things for sailors in the fast handicap fleet as they pursue different goals and aspirations. Its been a barren few weeks with the last three club races all cancelled due to strong winds. In fact this was the first club race held in April.
For Peter Colclough he is only looking at the 5o5 world championships in Hayling Island this summer. The 4 time World Champion is campaigning with Alister Morley and they have recently returned from the La Rochelle Euro Cup the scene of his most recent win in 1986. Dreams are made in Salcombe harbour and Peter and Alister led the fleet round in style.
But the battle for the series was being played out behind. John Burn and Ross Borne in the Salcombe Yawl needed to score well and beat Fran Gifford and Frankie Burn in the Merlin Rocket, Frankie acutely aware of his conflicts of interest. And young hotshots Ollie Meadowcroft and Becky Caiger in a Merlin, kindly sponsored by his father, Sheila and AJ Squire, were also planning to disrupt the scores.
But it being spring also meant the emergence of Yawls from the pontoon in the Bag to join the fray. Six Yawls made their first appearance of the season. The range of preparedness of these Yawl campaigns is simply stunning. Graham and Fiona Cranford Smith had launched the immaculate Y172, Chicken Run, that morning, pimped to within an inch of its life in Grahams workshop. Chris Skelhorns Battlecry, Y186, new on the water last year still glistening with pride after a winter of TLC and resplendent with helm Oliver Turner. Phil Magee is not sleeping. With the first Yawl open meeting of the year just two weeks away and the first Mini Series race next Saturday he recalled Tim Fells from his warm weather training programme to take the helm of Y17 and make sure everything was tip top after spending a few weeks in the Stones Boatyard shed over the winter.
The second Yawl open meeting is not any Open meeting. The prizes are sponsored by Yeti and this is why Phil cant sleep. He has promised his wife, Roz, one of these aforementioned deluxe cool boxes and as such she was not selected as his crew for the day. John and Katy Meadowcroft were still screwing things back on to Y175 and showing the hallmark preparedness of the Royal Navy failed to make the start. Greg and Clare Hoar took a different winter approach tucking Y145 into the garage and forgetting about it. This was looking good until the boat maintenance list reappeared after an hour of the race and they limped home with a broken rudder downhaul. Y99 and Y84 seemed to have got the preparation correct and raced round without incident, Y99 no doubt benefiting from sneaky practice the previous weekend.
Back to the race. Almost. Burn and Borne are taking a casual approach to the forthcoming Yeti meeting when Borne will step off and no doubt find other duties and chief Yeti Tris Stone will come on board Y170. Tris has been letting the team work on mast selection and has been watching eagle eyed from the shore. They will be well prepared when it matters.
After a glorious low tide harbour tour, around 1,7,1,3,2,3, the race team recorded Peter and Alister as did not finish. It's unclear what happened. They were so far ahead no one can be sure. Ollie and Becky won the battle of the Merlins and took first overall on handicap. They often say that a bad tack can cost you much on handicap sailing and Y170 and Y17 will be reflecting on this as they finished level on adjusted time after 100 minutes, the older Y17 benefiting from a small time advantage. This clearly will not help Phil and his sleep patterns and will unlikely save Tim from the prospect of further training sessions. Fran and Frankie took 4th, Frankie unable to please everyone.
This meant that Y170 was the winner of the spring series and somehow the Meadowcroft Merlin snatched second from Fran and Frankie. if the rest of the season is as much fun as the spring series has been then its going to be a stunner.
Solo Fleet report (by David Greening)
Following two weekends lost due to excessively high winds fifteen Salcombe Solo sailors were over keen to start the final race of the Salcombe Yacht Club Spring Series, resulting in a General Recall and a Black Flag for the restart.
With limited course setting options due to the Spring low tide, Race Officer Dan Bridger set a course to Blackstone followed by Gerston, returning to Blackstone and Crossways, in a shifty and gusty F3 to F4 West South Westerly breeze.
Series leader Chris Cleaves judged the starboard lay line perfectly to be first to round the windward mark followed by Paul Rayson and David Greening. The leading two pulled away on a gust, whilst Greening was soon run down by the chasing pack.
Mark Sanken held to the Portlemouth shore to nudge into third place for a short while, until Will Henderson positioned himself perfectly at Snapes to pick up the fresh breeze in the Bag to pull into third.
Upon returning to the harbour, the shifty breeze shuffled the pack. Leader Cleaves got caught port and starboard by Rayson on a big header, requiring turns to be completed and allowing Rayson to take the lead. While third placed Henderson took a double spill, allowing Simon Yates through to third, followed by Martin Hodgson and Greening.
These positions were maintained to the shortened course finish, handing the Spring Series to Cleaves, from Henderson, with Mark Waterhouse securing third place, from twenty five competitors in the series.
Full results can be found here.