A dull evening. In pretty much all respects really, I can't really say why: nothing seemed wrong with the course or anything else, but neither weather nor race really sparkled... We missed the thunderstorms that were about last night, but it was heavily overcast and I think I just heard thunder outside now... The wind was a sort of solidish F1, North westerley and not spectacularly shifty.

To be fair there was a bit of drama for the slow boat start. A good fleet/fight of Solos all fancied the port end of the line, so those who had attempted a port tack start found themselves having to take a lot of transoms... Having seen this no-one attempted the port tack option for the other starts. The course was - when it was set - probably beat, shyish reach, short beat, run, shyish reach back to the start. However by this time the wind had already gone round enough to make both beats and runs pretty one sided: indeed the short beat was effectively a fetch and the long one not that much better.

As the race progressed the Solos were, as fancied, doing very well, Gareth Griffiths leading. Mike Curtis got clear fairly early in a rather diminished fast fleet, whilst Evan Cairns was probably best placed Laser. Solos were always looking good, but towards the end of the race Ken Duffel made quite a change in his Merlin and suddenly started looking well placed. Not quite well enough though, as Messrs Griffiths, Cinnamond, Cottrell and Phillips made a Solo 1,2,34, with Ken 5th in the Merlin just beating Tom Howard, who was last of the Solos in 6th place.

In the personal handicap Ken Duffell won, followed by Mervyn Cinnamond, and Jamie Scott (Laser) third. Peter Cottrell, Arthur Phillips and Gareth Griffiths filled out the top 6. Oh yes, a special commiseration should go to Alistair Smith. Topper's don't enjoy the very light stuff anyway, but he seemed to have his own personal flat calm follow him round the track. Ouch!