Sailing Chandlery RS400 Southern Tour at Salcombe Yacht Club

The forecast for the May Bank Holiday weekend was looking bleak with changeable light winds and showers, very unlike the usual sunny windy blue waters of Salcombe.

6mm of rain poured down in as many minutes as the competitors were readying to rig and launch. After a short briefing and warnings of not to go in the fairway, the race officer decided to send the 17 strong RS400 fleet out to sea with the light easterly forecast, up to mark 1 then to 3 and out to sea for short windward leeward legs and then a beat back in with the tide.

Sailing Chandlery RS400 Southern Tour at Salcombe - photo © Lucy Burn

Howard and Louise Farbrother showed how long you can hang onto the side of the boat before the inevitable capsize, as if it wasn't cold enough with the rain.

2 races on Sunday and a different race officer, the fleet was kept inside doing 1 to 3s, running against the tide. Holes everywhere which a few of us seemed to find especially on the start line. Some clear wind, gifted to the few, enabled them to get away from the scrambling gybing boats, being caught by the Yawl and national 12 fleets adding to the wind shadows. 411 decided to two sail up the shore to get away from the crowd, Paul Smalley calling it legendary.

Sailing Chandlery RS400 Southern Tour at Salcombe - photo © Lucy Burn

After a short lunch on Smalls Beach, Race 3 was a better wind but the tide and the weed still claiming a few lost souls. Once again battling through the Yawl fleet strained the nerves. Dave and Caroline Exley had a great race to take the win and finish the day as overnight leaders.

The bar ran out of ale but I'm not sure this was down to the fleets as the overnight positions were very tight!

Sailing Chandlery RS400 Southern Tour at Salcombe - photo © Lucy Burn

The final day, and race 4 was a fight for 1st and for 3rd, a little more breeze but still the stonking tide to contend with on the run, beat up to 1 and then through the bag up to 5 (the 1st time for some), close racing for the first hour with a few place changes, the four leading boats were far ahead of the rest of the fleet. Rob Henderson and Rebecca Videlo romped away to win the race and the open on count back, another Salcombe event decided that way, as a couple of times before.

Prize Winners in the Sailing Chandlery RS400 Southern Tour at Salcombe - photo © RSCA

All in all, a well organised event, great for some newbies to come and visit Salcombe, and try out the bag and the fairway, not forgetting the ice-cream or the Crabfest.

Next stop on the RS400 Southern Tour is the Southern Champs at Warsash, 6/7 June, but ahead of that we hope that some Southerners will travel to the Northern Champs at Carsington 16/17 May (early entry for this ends at midnight on Friday, 8th May).

Overall Results: