Last week the Sidmouth sailors were still battling a gusty northerly breeze, although a little lighter than it has been recently, writes James Salter.

On Wednesday evening a moderate northerly breeze produced another race of shifty and gust conditions.

Off the line most boats started at the pin end (closest to shore) to take advantage of a favourable shift.

Paul Wilson was the exception to this; he chose to start much nearer to the first mark than everyone else, well over the start line!

James Salter and Hope Broadie pulled out a quick lead down the first leg, which proved to be just enough to have a great view of Nick Jennings and Scot Tobin’s upside-down spinnaker!

Thanks to thos spinnaker woes, Ollie Salter and Heather Adkin quickly sailed into second place in the scorpion fleet.

Through the rest of the lap Salter and Broadie pulled away in the scorpion fleet, as did Dave Johnson in the Laser Fleet.

All looked fairly settled into the race for the rest of the lap, until confusion set in when trying to sail around the Sausage (second lap).

James Salter and Broadie, along with Johnson, sailed off to the leeward mark, but then Ollie Salter and Adkin sailed off to the other buoy!

The rescue boat arrived on scene and informed the sailors that they were sailing to the wrong buoy; it wasn’t in fact a ‘port 1’ at all.

Happily things were corrected and, by the next mark everyone was still in the same positions.

The race continued relatively drama free with Salter and Boradie taking first place with Salter and Adkin second in the scorpions with Miles Hapgood and Steve Smith third.

Dave Johnson again showed good form in his laser to sail to second overall and first laser.

Saturday afternoon’s race had a poor turnout due to the club running a training course and it being the Lyme Regis scorpion open meeting.

It was decided to run one long race with Simon Price winning the scorpion fleet with Nick Dicks second.

Chris Clapp won the lasers, with Bob Vine second.

As always thanks to all the race management team and rescue boat crews.

Also thanks to all the club members who helped out with the training over the weekend.

And finally, congratulations to Alex Hayman from Sidmouth for winning the Lyme Regis Scorpion Open, crewing for Tim Parsons - Good Sailing.