Salcombe Yacht Club - Bucket & Spade Race 4&5 - 25th August 2018

Published 11:51 on 4 Sep 2018

Salcombe Yacht Club dinghy racers traditionally migrate to the open sea for the August Bank Holiday Weekend, which also marks the end of the Bucket and Spade Series. This initiative came about when the Harbour Master expressed concerns over a fleet of Salcombe Yawls plying their way through the beaches on the busiest weekend of the year.

David Greening the Race Officer ably assisted by Gail Bridger and a team of rescue crew set a Windward Leeward course between Gara Rock and Starehole Bay into a Westerly Force 3 breeze.

Full marks to the three Cadets who made it to the starting area and who completed both races; Gus Howells in the RS Quba showed the way around, however the Toppers of Louis Tollins and Dom Holt Wilson doggedly hung on in.

Nineteen boats Handicap boats came to the line, with the fleet splitting between an inshore and an offshore route. With weeks of training for this event Graham and Fiona Cranford-Smiths Merlin Rocket was much to the fore, however the ever keen Peter Ballantine held on to their coat tails sufficiently to secure the handicap win, with the diminutive Adrian Griffin securing third place alongside the 505 of Peter Colclough and Pete Bennett.

For the second Handicap fleet race, the Cranford-Smiths were victorious, displacing Ballantine into second place, and the 505 of Colclough and Bennett was sufficiently clear to take third place.

Six Salcombe Yawls completed the starting sequence, with Dan Bridger and Andrew Stirling taking control of both races from the Whitehouses and the Classic Yawl of Dobson, who demonstrated that despite the Race Officers attempts to protect the Salcombe Gin RIB, it was still possible to start on starboard in the second race!

Thanks go to Salcombe Gin, who kindly lent their magnificent RIB as a committee boat, sadly with none of the sponsor’s products on board!

Results Overall

Cadet Handicap

1^st RS Quba 4 Gus Howells

2^nd Topper 48171 Dom Holt Wilson

3^rd Topper 48172 Louis Tollins

Handicap

1^st Laser 166501 Peter Ballantine

2^nd Solo 5598 Billy Jago

3^rd Solo 5601 Simon Yates

Salcombe Yawl

1^st Yawl 171 Mike and Karen Whitehouse