UPPER Tamar Lake Sailing Club races on Sunday June 28.

Morning: Cup Race 7

A carp fishing competition in progress at the lake, meant that the racecourse had to be set to keep the boats the obligatory 30 metres away from the lake edges!

With the wind blowing in a south easterly direction and the start line heading the boats to Dam Green buoy congestion rained with boats coming at the buoy from a variety of tacks. (Subsequently real rain also fell although Mike loudly prophesied that it wouldn't!)

Jane Anderson started impeccably and led away from the first buoy. Middle buoy then saw Neil Wallace and Nicky Buckett in the Wayfarer start to close the gap for first place with Roger Ford and Val Shillito in their Wayfarer chasing hard in third.

Adeney Pooler in the Graduate was finding good patches of wind and managing to keep Roger Heasman and Simon Veal at bay until Pinkie Buoy where Simon moved ahead. Gradually the fleet settled into its common three component form, with the leading three boats pulling away at the front and the middle runners trying to put space between themselves and the slower boats. With the wind very variable and sometimes dying to nothing, the middle group of boats couldn't eke out enough distance to overcome the handicap benefits of the Otter, Graduate and Vickie Duncalf's Topper.

John Buckett excelled himself in the Otter and after a lot of furious handicap number crunching by the Officer of the Day, managed to finish second on handicap. Neil Wallace and Nicky Buckett came first and Jane Anderson third. Adeney Pooler got his best result of the season so far to finish fifth with Vickie Duncalf 6th.

Result: 1st, Neil Wallace and Nicky Buckett Wayfarer; 2nd, John Buckett Otter; 3rd, Jane Anderson Laser; 4th, Roger Ford and Val Shillito Wayfarer; 5th, Adeney Pooler Graduate; 6th, Vickie Duncalf Topper; 7th, John Chandler Bosun/Derek Farnfield Streaker; 9th, John Duncalf Topper; 10th, Mike Ford Solo; 11th, Simon Veal Laser; 12th, Roger Heasman Laser.

Lunchtime: Peter Pocock Novice Series.

With the youngsters all raring to go a pre-race talk to explain the penalties for hitting buoys and other boats was given. This subsequently seemed to have the effect of attracting the dinghies to each other like magnets and from the race start there were a lot of avoiding tacks going on.

Daan Rademaker with sister Annabelle as crew seemed have good boat balance as they overtook Megan Higgs to round Dam Green buoy first. Willemine Rademaker then made a dash through the field to first place with Megan moving to second Daan and Annabelle dropping to third and with Lisselot Rademaker playing catch up in fourth.

Joe Hedges was a having a nightmare with the outhaul on his boat which kept coming adrift and causing the sail to lose power. It was not to be Joe's day as he gradually slipped frustratedly further and further back finally finishing last.

Up front a right royal battle took place at the start of the second lap, with all the front four boats doing some excellent tacking manoeuvres and with Daan and Annabelle recapturing first place.

It was then nip and tuck all the way to an exciting finish with Willemine just holding on to take line honours, Megan second, Daan and Annabelle third and Lisselot only just beaten into fourth.

Result: 1st, Willemine Rademaker Pico; 2nd, Megan Higgs Pico; 3rd, Daan and Annabelle Rademaker Pico; 4th, Lisselot Rademaker Pico; 5th, Joe Hedges Pico.

p.m: Cup Race 7

A larger fleet of sixteen boats crossed the start line to do another three laps round the same course as in the morning. With an improvement in the wind there was even more jockeying for position to get to Dam Green buoy, with numerous calls for starboard and water at the buoy.

This unfortunately led to the retirement of Stephanie Clark through a lack of clear communication with John Buckett and seemed to affect John and crew Izzy Higgs subsequent overall performance.

Stephanie's daughter Katherine meanwhile, having 'pinched' her mother's Laser to race in, was having a storming race and showing the rest of the fleet how it should be done. Roger Ford and Val Shillito in the Wayfarer were also managing to peg the distance to Jane Anderson in her Laser whilst Neil Wallace and Nicky Buckett were the class act of the day and in a relatively short race couldn't be caught.

Mike Ford and Paul Whybrow had a tussle in their two Solo's over the second and third laps with Paul passing Mike during the beats and Mike passing Paul on the runs. Derek Farnfield managed to keep the Streaker out of trouble and did well after initially nearly careering into Roger Ford during a gust of wind as their boats ran past Middle buoy.

Stephen Muller in his Topper also had a good race managing to split the Toppers of John and Vickie Duncalf and push John Chandlers Bosun back into tenth on handicap.

Katherine was sailing the Laser on the smallest sail and her skill meant that even after the race Neil was questioning whether Katherine had beaten Nicky and himself on handicap!

Result: 1st, Neil Wallace and Nicky Buckett Wayfarer; 2nd, Katherine Muller Laser 4.7; 3rd, Jane Anderson Laser; 4th, Roger Ford and Val Shillito Wayfarer; 5th, Derek Farnfield Streaker; 6th, Vickie Duncalf Topper; 7th, Mike Ford Solo; 8th, Paul Whybrow Solo; 9th, Stephen Muller Topper; 10th, John Chandler Bosun; 11th, Roger Heasman Laser; 12th, John Duncalf Topper; 13th, David Higgs Laser; 14th, John Buckett and Izzy Higgs Otter; 15th, Adeney Pooler Graduate. Retired: Stephanie Clark Topper.