THIRTEEN boats crossed the start line propelled by the gentlest of easterly winds.

James Pollard, with a full sail on his Laser, led up to Dam Green followed by Steve Axford (Laser Full) and Robin Spiller whose Streaker remained right up with the leaders.

The breeze produced a slow and stately rounding of Dam Green by a fleet, which included Brian Pollard in a Laser for the first time. There, followed a sedate progress up the Lake towards Pinkie; indeed there were some mirror calm patches where the helms found it a challenge to find any wind at all.

However, it picked up for the reach between West and Inlet, which James Pollard and Steve Axford still led.

They were followed by the full-sailed Lasers of Jane Chadney and Sue Murray with Adam Hilton’s Solo sandwiched between them.

Jane Anderson, with a Radial sail on her Laser, competed with Graham Joyce (Laser Full) at the buoy.

The second lap saw half of the fleet edging side by side towards Zebra with barely any steerage and Anderson, with her habitual magic wind, bearing down on them from starboard.

A good deal of gentle boat bumping was the outcome and Chadney, Axford and Hilton all had to perform penalty pirouettes, Axford managing to capsize in the process.

The breeze was strengthening and shifting to the north and Chadney emerged from the pack to round Pinkie first with Murray following.

But there were more changes of place to come even in the half lap that remained of a race that was shortened to two laps; Murray crossed the finish line first with Anderson second and Chadney third.

When the handicaps were applied the Solo’s pulled Hilton up from fourth to give him a 12-second lead over Anderson. Chadney withdrew, realising that she had only completed one of the two penalty turns she owed.

This at least was a race in which it was possible to complete three laps; indeed there was enough wind to flip over the RS200 before the start.

First across a line, now facing North were Adam Hilton, James Pollard, and Jane Chadney.

From there, the long beat up to Pinkie spread out the field, with those going for speed downwind doing better than those who stayed to windward.

Bob Sampson got to Pinkie first and on the way back Jane Anderson advanced to close up on him.

Those two stayed at the front and with only 50 seconds between them at the finish the handicap was bound to give the victory to Anderson and her Radial rather than Sampson.

Starting the second lap, Hilton, Steve Axford, Jane Chadney and James Pollard were all in close contention.

Penny Abbott suffered a capsize, allowing overtaking by the Enterprise (Alan Comber and John Weller) as well as Paul Whybrow’s Solo.

Chadney capsized on the third lap shortly after Inlet, which lost her a couple of places at the finish.

Grateful thanks were given to Linda Spiller and John Savage for officiating and to Mandy Pollard for photos.