THE sun and light southerly wind meant challenging conditions in races 13 and 14 of the freezer series held by Bristol Corinthian Yacht Club at Cheddar reservoir.

THE sun and light southerly wind meant challenging conditions in races 13 and 14 of the freezer series held by Bristol Corinthian Yacht Club at Cheddar reservoir.

In the first race, Charles Davidson set a clover leaf course using all of the reservoir. The Solos had their own start and it was soon clear Mark Tinker had the measure of the conditions. The rest of the boats started with the handicap fleet. In the RS200, Pete Vincent and Naomi soon edged ahead having won the start convincingly.

In the Enterprises, there was a lot of place changing mid-fleet, but Ian Wakeling and Shaun were never really challenged for first place. Further down the fleet in a photo finish, Richard and Emily were disappointed to be pipped at the line by Steve and Richard.

In the handicap fleet, Jimmy Millar (RS300) was soon clear of the slower boats, mid fleet Richard Packer found it difficult to shake the Laser 2000 of Bob Jones. The shifting conditions looked to give it to Packer as they approached the finish, but the 2000 Mo held off the challenge to finish two seconds ahead.

Race two saw an increase in competitors with starts for the Solos, Enterprises and RS200s around the Olympic course set by the race officer.

Tinker got away cleanly in the Solos and opened out an enormous lead to finish several minutes ahead of his nearest rival. In the Enterprise fleet, Wakeling won the start and had good boat-speed which left him in a dominant position.

Despite a good start, Richard and Emily made some poor tactical decisions and combined with some bad luck slipped back to eventually finish third. The handicap fleet had some excitement when Millar in the 300 lost control and collided with Harris in the OK.

It was another race where the Packer’s boat were unable to shake the Laser 2000 for most of the race, although they built a lead on the last two spinnaker reaches to eventually finish a two minutes ahead.

In the RS200s, there was a messy start when Darren and Jack forced David and Lynn the wrong side of the mark at the start and Will and Chris were also pushed over the line at the start.

Pete and Naomi sailed clear and made the most of the shifts to build a substantial lead followed by Darren and Jack. In the end it became a procession with the team of Pete Vincent and Naomi taking line honours.

The junior class was a close tussle between Ryan Bush (9) and Jamie Harris (9), both sailing Optimists. In the first race, Ryan managed to beat off Jamie to finish first with positions reversed in the afternoon.

For anyone interested in finding out more about sailing BCYC’s at Home starts at 1pm on April 3. Further information can be found at www.bcyc.org.uk