Busy weekend at Horning Sailing Club
by Toby Fields, Alastair Fields & Holly Hancock 22 Sep 09:31 PDT
19-20 September 2026
Horning Sailing Club enjoyed a breezy weekend's racing with two events taking place over 19/20th September. The whole weekend saw the annual Yare & Bure Open take place on Hoveton Little Broad, attracting 10 participants, half of whom do not usually sail at HSC. Saturday saw strong gusty conditions and a compulsory reef ordered as a result, with lively racing. Although Sunday started calmer, with reefing optional, soon the wind increased in strength to provide conditions like the day before.
Ultimately, it ended up being a matter of family rivalry, with Richie and Flip Dugdale battling it out at the front of the fleet with extremely close results. The overall winner was Richie, crewed by Robert Whitefoot in Gallium Hawk, taking three wins and two second places. Three firsts and a third were enough to secure Flip second, crewed by George Williams in The Miller, whilst third overall were Dom and Jack Copping in Scarce Copper.
Meanwhile, whilst most of the YBODs were having fun on Black Horse Broad, some 16 entrants were taking part in a downriver race to Thurne. Conditions were gusty, particularly in the morning, with several reefs seen amongst the Rebels and River Cruisers.
After starting at Woods Dyke, the River Cruisers powered away running with a strong outgoing tide. First to arrive was Melinda after 52 minutes including rounding the mark placed near Oby moorings. They were so fast to complete the passage they had to be belled in by a race officer still walking up to the end Thurne Dyke having only just arrived by car. We calculate Melinda's average speed at around 8mph over the whole race! The other cruisers weren't too far behind although Melinda held on with the handicaps from Amantani.
The keelboats also saw some exciting racing with the fleet split into Allcomers and Yeomans to avoid start line congestion. First to arrive was Rebel Rothay with Rebel Maid close behind, however, Willow Beauty with Devon Bulldeath on the helm was around a minute further back and made his time on handicap despite the reef. In the Yeomans, Maria Spreadbury won convincingly in Scorpio followed by Caroline Gilbert in Hornet although both still behind Willow Beauty on handicap.
The RS400 had an interesting time of it on the way down with at least 7 capsizes counted by the dory crew. However, they made it to Thurne to complete the course. On the return leg, the Cruisers were won by Grayling from Melinda. Mention has to be made of the young team aboard Arundhati with an average age around 17 who completed the course very competently in both directions.
The keelboats heavily favoured the Yeomans this time with Paul Clarke first in Two C Sons followed by Roger Pettit in Anoih. The Allcomers A start was led by Rebel Rothay, closely followed by Rebel Maid after exactly 2 hours of hard beating against the tide back to Woods Dyke.
Many of the competitors will be looking forward to the Autumn Passage Race next month, for which this was very good practice. The race is on 17th October 2026 - entry information can be found at horning-sailing.club/activities/autumn-passage-race