Salcombe Gin Salcombe Yacht Club Regatta 2025
by Malcolm Mackley 10 Aug 22:33 PDT
3-8 August 2025
Salcombe Yacht Club Regatta 2025 © Lucy Burn
This year the total number of all boats competing in the Salcombe Gin sponsored Salcombe Yacht Club Regatta was a post-Covid record and the recent renaissance of the Salcombe Yawl fleet an astonishing and wondrous sight for competitors and spectators alike.
The weather provided strong and light winds with rain and sunshine in nearly equal measures resulting in a range of very different sailing conditions for all competitors throughout the week. Class starts were in the morning, or the afternoon and so over the period of six days all classes had different tidal conditions that make Salcombe such a wonderfully challenging place to sail.
Morning Starts
Slow Handicap - Junior Handicap - Topper
SYC provides strong support for juniors and the 21-boat entry in the different subsets was highly competitive. The Junior handicap fleet was dominated by Henry Gage and Joshua Brewer in their RS Feva who won every race in their class. Will Ness in his Topper nearly matched this result but allowed Bella Wilson to take one race. The Slow Handicap was also included in this fleet and again first in every race was secured by the father a daughter combination of Mark and Olivia Stockbridge.
RS400
The seven competitors in the RS400 fleet was dominated by Figs Cain and Olli Scrimshaw who won nearly all the races but allowed Mike and June Baker the pleasure of winning one.
Handicap
This years highly competitive handicap fleet of 23 entries was packed with diversity and talent. The Jamie Stewart Thames A Rater towered above everybody looking magnificent and this was closely followed by the Ultra National 18 of Michael Wilson. Past popular Salcombe classes of Enterprises, Larks, Merlins and National 12s were this year included in the Handicap fleet creating formidable competition. Fran Gifford and Phil Dalby in their Merlin Rocket secured two race wins to win the week overall with recently crowned Hadron National Champion Richard Leftley 2nd with one race win. Alistair Conn also with one race win in his full rig ILCA was 3rd overall. Other race wins were secured by the LARKs of Tim Fells and Frankie Burn, and Stuart Hydon and Vicky Hydon.
Laser 4.7 - Laser Radial
The emergence of a very healthy SYC ILCA fleet at Salcombe has been a welcome and exciting development. In the 7 boat ILCA radial fleet Andrew Groves dominated, however Selena King had a great week coming 2nd with Allan Willcox 3rd. The near all female ILCA 4.7 fleet attracted 10 entries and was dominated and won by Charlotte Simmonds however, she allowed another up and coming Salcombe sailor Ivy Hart to win one race to secure 2nd overall. The final race was won by Charlie MacKenzie who has recently won International success in a Topper, and he secured 3rd place overall in the ILCA 4.7s.
Salcombe Yawl Gold
This year there were over sixty wooden Salcombe Yawls sailing in the Regatta and in the summer, the SYC club line is restricted by a fairway designed to accommodate the busy commercial and holiday boats of all shapes and sizes. Sixty Salcombe Yawls starting on one line is impossible and so the massive fleet was divided into four with one fleet starting in the morning. The morning Gold fleet was convincingly won by Robin Piggot and Robert Smith Y123, although they were pushed hard by Emily and Greg Hoar in their funky paint job Y145 with Issy and Andrew wood Y126 coming 3rd.
Afternoon Starts
Solo
The afternoon proceedings started with the 22 strong Solo fleet. As always racing was highly competitive, but with 3 race wins and a discarded 4th Simon Dobson dominated in all race conditions. There were race wins for Roger Guess, Will Wall and Tim Jackson, but consistency meant Simon (Yotter) Yates was 2nd overall with Mick Hicks 3rd.
Salcombe Yawl Red (21 entries)
The Red Salcombe Yawl fleet is where some of the Salcombe Hot shots reside, and competition is ferocious. Packed with current and aging super stars, this fleet is only for the brave. It took Will and Mandy Henderson Y168 until the final day before they won a race, however discarding a 6th meant that they were consistently in the top 5. Another husband-and-wife couple Paul and Julie Rayson Y178 were 2nd overall with two race wins. Phil King and John Sleep Y183 were 3rdoverall again with two race wins.
Salcombe Yawl Blue (23 entries)
The blue fleet has traditionally been occupied by the older Yawls however, such is the current renaissance of Yawl activity this fleet has become highly competitive too. Rob Henderson and Alice Markham Y92, dominated the fleet in a Yawl that had been recovered over the winter from a muddy backwater. 2nd overall were Russell and John Smithers in Y19 which is one of the oldest Yawls currently racing. 3rd overall was James Greenhill and Chris Cleeves Y138.
Salcombe Yawl Green (9 entries)
The Green fleet provided the opportunity for some Yawls to sail in both the morning and afternoon with a swapping of helm and crews. Again, this was highly competitive and was dominated by Mark and Sarah Jepcott with Peter Andrews and Katie Cad Y84 2nd. Martin and George Mills Y182 were 3rd.
Overall the regatta week was a huge success with Salcombe Gin providing very generous prizes of bottles of gin with sponsors vouchers for juniors. Paula Guess organised an incredible array of trophies, some of which go way back in time. SYC staff and volunteers worked tirelessly to make everything run smoothly. Special mention also needs to go to Nigel Blazeby who acted as race officer for every afternoon race setting very imaginative and effective courses. Running an event such as this requires a huge amount of teamwork and this is something over the years SYC has learnt to do very well.