Poole Winter Series at Parkstone Yacht Club and Poole Yacht Club

The class winners gather on Parkstone’s balcony after the Poole Winter Series prize-giving © David Harding / www.sailingscenes.co.uk

The ten-week Poole Winter Series came to a conclusion at the weekend with several podium places up for grabs.

In Class One early on it had been both Ian Braham's Enigma and Alan and Lis Bennett's Blue Jay that made the running but light airs during the latter part of the series suited the big J, Rob and Jackie Dobson's Jeronimo, which made a second half surge with five straight wins to come out top. Braham had to settle for second with Blue Jay in third overall.

Matt Hardy broke the recent domination of Duncan McCarthy in the J24 fleet, Parkstone's Hardy always there or thereabouts, his Sublime won 10 of their 18 races, McCarthy had to settle for a series second.

Class 1A Terry Dinmore's Captain Moonlight headed the table at the halfway point with three wins from four races but was always shadowed by Ian Wall's MG27 Mojito. The latter's dominance with three straight wins at the end saw Dinmore relegated to also-ran with Bill Frewin's Addict II stepping-in to fill the second spot. Brian Thompson and Ivor Graham took third with their Dehler, Deity.

Class Two's battle of the Sonatas was occasionally broken by Chris Hawkes' GK24 Minx but Kevin Cross's Snotty, Selene, came out on top ahead of his son Joe in another Sonata, Presto. Minx took third.

At the end of Class Three's series there were level points for John Milner's Linota and Barrie Walsh's Calico, however the latter got the trophy on count back with Kevin Giles' SoupDragon in third.

The One Design R19 fleet saw boats taking it in turn to win a race, only towards the end did Steve Brown's Rolo edge ahead, Julian Peach settling for a close second.

This series was another successful collaboration being organised by both Poole and Parkstone Yacht Clubs. Poole hosting four fleets from their in-harbour line whilst Parkstone started the big Class One boats and J24s out in the bay.

Surprisingly some races in-harbour were cancelled for lack of breeze whilst, only a couple of miles away, out in the bay, they had enough wind for racing to be completed.

Good turnout numbers reflected the good weather, what a lovely way to end what was generally a poor season weather-wise. There was a good turnout at Parkstone for the prize-giving too. Poole's Commodore, Laurie Thornton-Grimes presented the trophies, ably assisted by his Parkstone counterpart, Barry Rolfe.

Full series results can be found here.

And just when you'd think that'd be the end of the matter they're at it again; two fun races which anyone can take part in. Parkstone host a handicap fleet race on Boxing Day with the start probably being Brownsea Roads, listen on M1. Don't worry if you don't have a handicap, they'll make one up when you get there!

On New Year's Day there is the traditional Pursuit Race off the Poole YC line. For this start times are calculated in advance so please email me and I'll pass your details on to the organisers.