Sidmouth Sailing Club’s 2013 awards evening was well attended with commodore Steve Smith the master of ceremonies, writes Richard Paterson.

The sailing club has had a successful season of club racing despite mixed weather conditions throughout the year.

The club also hosted the Scorpion National Championship in August, with competitors travelling from all over the country for a week of intensive racing. Immediately after this was the annual Sidmouth Regatta for which a number of visitors stayed on to swell the local ranks.

In this year’s Laser series, the main winner was Bob Vine, although Simon White won the second Wednesday series.

In the Scorpion series honours were more evenly spread, with Nick Jennings, James Salter, Miles Hapgood and Nick Dicks all collecting trophies.

Team events this year were badly affected by the weather but the New Years Day head to head between the Vice Commodore and the Rear Commodore saw a good turn out. On this occasion Scott Tobin’s team took the honours.

Following a break for a tasty supper provided by the rear commodore, Paul Channing, and his band of willing helpers, the commodore went on to single out a number of people for special thanks for their work keeping the club running and helping to ensure that the Scorpion Nationals ran smoothly. These included Chris Clapp, for keeping the club boats in working order, John Keast, for his work as race officer for the Nationals and John Jones, who was beach-master for that event.

This year’s training sessions lead by Keith and Hope Brodie, were again very successful in introducing young people and families to sailing. The Most Improved Junior cup went jointly to Christina Clapp and Emily Pulman.

Other club awards included the Les and Ivy Bacon Trophy to Nick Jennings, for the most race starts, the Gunner Trophy to James Salter, for most wins and the Phibbs Trophy to Alex Hayman, for travelling to competitions away from home.

Simon Price once again won the Wrecker’s Trophy, this year managing to damage his Scorpion several times, once even losing his transom.

There is talk of renaming it the Simon Price Trophy!