Saturday 28th April 2018

April the 28th saw the first Super Saturday dinghy racing event of the 2018 season, with the hard but friendly recruiting done by Carl Anderson and the enthusiasm drummed up by Kate Rands – leading to a record entry of 52 boats, 33 in the fast handicap, including four welcome Phantoms from Creeksea Sailing Club, 10 entries in the slow handicap and 9 Optimists.

The weather may have been a bit grey and dreary, but there was no shortage of smiles from the sailors as everybody enjoyed being part of the event and dusting off the racing cobwebs.  After a briefing in the Club bar the flotilla launched and made its way down to Cliff Reach where two races for each fleet were organised by Edwin Buckley and the team on Phoebe in their customary polished fashion.

There were three different types of boat at the top of the 33 strong Fast Handicap fleet – Dylan Collingbourne in a Laser Radial won the two race series with a 1st and a 2nd, followed by Malcolm Hutchings in a Blaze with a 1st and a 3rd, James Hutton-Penman sailing an RS Aero 7 took 3rd across the two races, with Jon Sturmer’s Solo taking fourth. The Slow Handicap was largely dominated by Tera Pros with Jed Cox, Charlie Corbett and Ethan Hague leading, but all not quite managing to pip Archie Kemp and Freddie Fisher sailing their Feva. Meanwhile, in the nine strong Oppy Fleet racing was close, with Harry Courts, Jemima Cook and Angus Beale finishing in the podium positions.

All in all a well organised and very enjoyable event that left everybody looking forward to the next Super Saturday on the 19th of May – be there for the 9 o’clock briefing in the Bar and make sure that you enter with the Office in advance!

Finally, we must add a big thank you to the Race Officer and team Phoebe, the kind volunteers who manned the rescue boats (and to Steve Rands for making sure that they work!) and to the crew of the mark laying boat; without you all we wouldn’t have been able to have had our fun.

Olly Moon