The Sidmouth Sailing Club sailing season got under way with some sunshine and wind and that continued last weekend with glorious conditions for so early in the season, writes Keith Brodie.

To be on the water in April and have to worry seriously about sun tan cream rather than if the water proofs need replacing is most unusual!

This year, the club has started upon a project to replace some of the old club boats used for training and the first two arrived in time for the start of the new season.

The chosen class is the RS Feva and, although the budget has not enabled the club to buy brand new, they have been able to find two nearly new boats in good condition and the juniors who have tried them seem delighted. It looks as though there will be a lot of competition to take the new boats out for a sail and it was excellent to see the Fevas on the water on the first day of racing.

?The club has another full programme of racing and events planned for the year. The first championship event takes place at the end of May, over the bank holiday weekend, when the Scorpions come for the open meeting. The Scorpions are exciting boats to sail and beautiful to look at and the club is lucky to have a large fleet with some excellent sailors in the town.

?SSC will be training another 30 new juniors on Tuesday evenings with 15 improvers joining the Wednesday night sailing.

Youth sailing provides youngsters with so much in the way of confidence that it is well worth the effort that the Sailing Club members put in each year to teach them.

The club is also planning more formal RYA training for both juniors and adults and so, if you fancy taking up a sport that gets you out in the fresh air and is exciting and fun, please get in touch through the website www.sidmouthsailing.org.uk as the club will be pleased to hear from you.

?As to last Saturday’s results, Alex Hayman and his crew Sam Gosling showed the Scorpion fleet how it should be done by winning both races by a significant margin.

Alex has acquired a newer boat for this season, and it seems to be going very well but Alex shouldn’t get too confident as there are a lot of Scorpion sailors that haven’t yet started racing this year. When they do, Alex may not have it all his own way. Nick Jennings has a new crew in Saphire Smith and they look as though they are going to enjoy their racing, taking a second and a third place, swapping places with Simon Price and Imogen in some pretty testing conditions.

The Laser Fleet seemed to start off where it left off last year with Bob Vine winning both races with H Thompson and Paul Wilson competing for the minor places with Josie Robb coming in fourth in both races.

Josie is one of the lightest sailors and the standard sail on her Laser may have been just a bit too much for her in the conditions.

Only two Toppers started the first race with Alice Rea winning over John Jones. Alice retired before the second race and so John had no competition but sailed anyway. Richard and Arthur Paterson took their Mirror out for the first race and then retired due to the conditions.

Sailing continues on Saturday but the Wednesday night series gets underway on April 20. now that the nights have drawn out and we are looking forward to a good season both on and off of the water.