Commissioning Race 2019
Published 11:01 on 12 Mar 2019
SYC 09 March 2019. Commissioning Race
The Salcombe Yacht Club 2019 sailing season was fortunate to get underway after a persistent SW 50 knot sever gale relented for just enough time to enable sailing to happen on Saturday 9th March. 15 boats came to the line in a general handicap race with the added incentive of a whiskey miniature bottle for all age eligible competitors. The race started in benign conditions and the RS400 of Peter Colclough and Peter Bennett soon established a good lead as they headed towards the Blackstone mark at the mouth of the estuary. Race Officer Chris Cleaves challenged the fleet by then sending them through the Bag to the Gerston mark which is positioned half way towards the town of Kingsbridge. The Bag was relatively sheltered, however going to and coming back from Gerston produced plenty of challenges with some sensational off wind sailing in the increasing wind strength. By the time the dinghies returned for a loop in the Salcombe harbour the wind strength had increased even further with powerful squalls down the estuary where there were some inevitable capsizes and any winter cobwebs were certainly removed from boats and bodies. After calculation of handicaps a Solo sailed by Robin Hodges emerged as the winner from the Dan Bridger Yawl and then the Tim Fells Aero 7.
1st Solo 5096 Robin Hodges.
2nd Salcombe Yawl 159 Dan Bridger and Andrew Stirling.
3rd Aero 7 1505 Tim Fells.
Many thanks to Simon Day photography for taking some great images at our first race of the season. Some of these are now on our website gallery: www.salcombeyc.org.uk/galleries
For more images from the day and to contact Simon please visit www.simonday.com
