Salcombe Yacht Club Winter Series - Race 1
by David Greening 1 Nov 2015 10:33 GMT
31 October 2015
Salcombe Yacht Club Winter Series Race 1 © Margaret Mackley
A glorious sunny and warm afternoon made the first race of the Salcombe Yacht Club Winter series seem inappropriately named, and the prospect of sailing in a less crowded harbour albeit at low water springs, attracted thirty eight boats onto the water.
Race management was in the hands of Malcolm "The Don" Mackley, and true to form he set a course that resembled a quadratic equation, where X was to be rounded two times, in an attempt to provide the semblance of a beat,
Twenty Solo sailors came to the start line; the initial challenge was to decide which end of the line to start to make the most of the easterly breeze and to get from the Portlemouth side to the Salcombe side before the tidal gate that is Snapes Point.
The majority elected to hold their lanes and take a long drag across the harbour. However Chris Cleaves put in some short tacks along the beaches, and crossed late, to head the fleet into the Bag, chased by a pack which would whittle down to Simon Dobson, Peter Hammond and David Greening.
Peter Hammond was somewhat unlucky to get rolled by Dobson and Greening on the return to Snapes Point, and eventually Dobson was able to take Cleaves on an extremely tactical final beat from Millbay to the finish line.
It was good to see eighteen boats contest the Handicap Racing, as the various regular fleets amalgamate into one for the winter.
Faced with a similar starting dilemma to the Solos, the Merlin Rocket of Peter Cook and Janet Exelby led the charge up the Portlemouth side, whilst the Phantom, the RS Aero 9 and the Yawls headed for the Salcombe shore.
Rather fittingly for Halloween, Alistair Morley was no zombie in his Phantom and ghosted along to break clear of the faster Merlin, in fact he was also to overtake the leading Solos in the later stages of the race, before winning on the water and on corrected time.
The Yawl of Andrew Wood and Tim Pettit, despite finishing nearly fifteen minutes behind Alistair was able to secure third place on corrected time, from sometime Yawl sailor Dan Bridger who managed to keep the white flappy thing of his recently acquired RS Aero 9 pointing upwards this week.
Race 1 Results:
Fast Handicap
1st Phantom 1357, Alistair Morley
2nd Merlin Rocket 3616, Peter Cook and Janet Exelby
3rd Salcombe Yawl 97, Andrew Wood and Tim Pettit
4th RS Aero 1752, Dan Bridger
Solo
1st 5313, Simon Dobson
2nd 5573, Chris Cleaves
3rd 5617, David Greening
4th 5271, Peter Hammond