Wednesday was a windy sail for Sidmouth Sailing Club members, but, luckily, only a few people capsized, writes Connor Fitch.

On the water were several novice sailors, who coped extremely well with the conditions that were thrown at them.

The more experienced sailors were moving very quickly, with Bob Vine and Chris Clapp fighting for the lead in the laser fleet. As usual, Scott Tobin was making a meal of it as one of his knots came undone and the sail flew off the boom!

The Scorpion fleet was won by Simon Price with his daughter Imogen as his crew, closely followed by Nick Jennings. The Topper fleet was lead by Connor Fitch, who normally sails a Laser but had to downsize because of the conditions.

In this fleet was the first novice sailor, Karl Webb, who has only been sailing for about three months. There was only one RS Feva on the water, therefore taking first place in their fleet. This was crewed by Noel, a visitor on holiday from Berkshire, with Edward Willison. Noel has quite a lot of experience but Edward is a relative novice who was on the same course as Karl Webb only three months ago and who is improving his sailing.

On to Saturday, when there was a fair bit of wind out at sea. Just like Wednesday, Chris and Bob were together for most of both races, ending up first and second, respectively. H Thompson managed a third place in the first race, but dropped a position in the second, swapping places with Paul Wilson. Andy Swain had two fifth places and Chris Riley two sixths.

If Chris could keep his boat upright more, he would do less swimming and improve his results! Nick Jennings had Simon Price crew for him in his Scorpion and managed to keep the crew in the boat for once.

Nick Dicks was sailing the only other Scorpion with Bob Davidson and had a respectable first race but, at the start of the second, he had a gear failure that led to his mast collapsing, giving the safety boat crew of Andy Mitchell and Mark Wearing something to do.

Alice Rea was sailing in the only Topper on the water with the wind to her advantage.

Some of the Scorpion sailors have been competing in Tenby this last week at the National Championships and members are waiting to hear how they have done.

Connor Fitch and his brother Kyle represented Sidmouth SC at the Beer Regatta last weekend and, although they didn’t bring home the silverware, they gave a good account of themselves.