A glorious sunny and warm afternoon made the first race of the Salcombe Yacht Club winter series seem inappropriately named.

The prospect of sailing in a less crowded harbour, albeit at low water springs, attracted 38 boats on to 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 18 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, while 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.

Results

Fast Handicap

1 Phantom 1357

Alistair Morley,

2 Merlin Rocket 3616

Peter Cook and

Janet Exelby,

3 Salcombe Yawl 97

Andrew Wood and

Tim Pettit,

4 RS Aero 1752

Dan Bridger

Solo

1 Solo 5313

Simon Dobson,

2 Solo 5573

Chris Cleaves,

3 Solo 5617

David Greening,

4 Solo 5271

Peter Hammond