Busy Bexhill Sailing Club members are in the swing of the season

They finished the Spring Series and held the Easter Egg series over the Easter weekend, then started the Saturday and Sunday series of races. They also had 'Get Back Into Sailing' training for last year's Novices, and anyone else who wanted a some practice and coaching on the water.

They held a family-friendly social games night on the last Friday of April. Games played included cribbage, avalanche, (non-gambling) poker and dominoes.

The May Bank Holiday weekend bought the fleets out in force, with 18 boats on the water for the Early May Series of races. An agonising start for 2 boats (Paul/James in a Laser 2000 and Rachel Wynn in her Comet Xtra) who launched and instantly had daggerboard / centreboard troubles, returning immediately to shore to sort out the problems then re-launch.

The wind was an intermittent BFT 1-2 (sailors use the Beaufort Scale of wind measurement), and for a while the boats were being dragged backwards by the tide when the wind died completely. The second race ended with some boats being towed back to shore by the safety boats because they had drifted a long way downstream. But plenty of boats did sail over the finish line, so the results are ...

Novice fleet Race 1 was won by Hugh Stephenson, Race 2 by Paul Andrews and James Todd. Paul and James won the series. Slow fleet Race 1 was won by Dave Kerr, Race 2 was won by Rachel Wynn (having sorted out her troublesome daggerboard!). The Series winner was Rachel, with Dave second.

Fast fleet Races 1 and 2, and therefore the series, were won by Richard Eagleton, with Bob Palmer second in both races, and the Series.

With such light winds there was only 1 catamaran and 1 asymmetric boat that entered, so both won. Congratulations Mark Scheldt/Miles Coote (catamaran) and Dusty Miller/Andy Bullen (Asy).

Bank Holiday Monday was due to have a special Pursuit race, prepared by Commodore Judith. Sadly too much wind saw it cancelled.

This coming weekend (10/11 May) the club have a cruise up the coast at 10am on Saturday and the Sunday Series continues. Do come and watch us from the prom, or even better, join the club and watch from our balcony – more at https://www.bexhillsailing.club