ELEVEN Salcombe Yacht Club Solo sailors survived the Winter enabling themselves to compete in the first race of the Spring series, writes David Greening.

Fran Gifford, the Race Officer set a windward leeward course in the harbour making the most of the force 2-3 East North Easterly breeze.

With a competitive start, Tim Fells found sufficient speed to find clear air and less tide by heading to the Yawl trots first, leading Chris Cleaves around the Crossways mark.

Tim was never to be headed and drew out a comfortable lead, helped by the close racing between six pursuers, who bunched up on the run to Blackstone, and were to remain in close contact throughout the race, the order determined by the quality and positioning of their mark rounding. Cleaves, Henderson, Mackley and Greening being the early chasers.

With a big spring low tide at an hour into the race, on the upwind legs it would prove a challenge to decide how close to the shore sailors could go to avoid the ebb tide, vs. finding some gusty lifts further out in the tide.

As Mackley dropped out of the bunch, Billy Jago and Robin Hodges joined the group. At the penultimate rounding of Crossways, Will Henderson found a cleaner line to break into a more comfortable second place, leaving the four boats fighting for the remaining podium.

At the final rounding of Blackstone Robin Hodges called no room on Greening and Cleaves, securing him third place, whilst Greening and Cleaves finished in a dead heat fourth. A great two hours of racing, though probably quite boring for Tim Fells the winner.

Moving on from the first race of the spring series for the solo fleet, there is also fast handicap racing to sink your teeth into.

A dull grey day, with a 510 knot ENE breeze and a spring low tide, probably had a lot to do with the low turnout in the Fast Handicap for the first race of the Spring Series, reports John Burn.

Race Officer Fran Gifford wisely avoided The Bag and set a course in the main harbour.

Only the 505 of Peter Colclough and Alistair Morley, along with the Salcombe Yawl of John Burn and Ross Borne, fancied it. The handicap differential between these two boats inevitably meant that both would no doubt find it a little boring as they made their way around the course by themselves.

Still, there was a race to be won, and so off they went, quickly parting company as they raced the clock, both attempting to secure victory on corrected time.

Peter and Alistair did their best, but after an uneventful afternoon on the water, John and Ross comfortably claimed top spot with a six-minute margin.

Although boring at times, sailing in Salcombe is always better than not sailing in Salcombe!

First place went to John Burn and Ross Borne in the Y170 with Peter Colclough and Alistair Morley (505) taking second place behind them.

Photography courtesy of Lucy Burn.