THIRTY-ONE boats competed on Saturday in the first two Waldringfield Sailing Club trophy races this year. The race officer set the traditional courses for both the Coronation Cup and Victory Plate races.

THIRTY-ONE boats competed on Saturday in the first two Waldringfield Sailing Club trophy races this year.

The race officer set the traditional courses for both the Coronation Cup and Victory Plate races.

For the cup this meant a sail through Troublesome Reach, (and the Deben YC racing!), almost to Loaders Cut, and back again to Waldringfield against the weakening flood tide.

The course for the plate is essentially from WSC to Kingsfleet, just upriver from Felixstowe Ferry, and back against the increasing ebb tide.

The westerly force 3 - gusting 5 - winds made for a lot of very fast mostly two- and but sometimes three-sail reaching for both races.

They were both decided by applying Portsmouth Yardstick time correction factors to each class of dinghy.

The fleet was split into fast and slow starts for safety, with the slower classes starting 15 minutes ahead.

It turned out to be a Lark benefit day with the top four places in both races given to boats from the club's fastest class.

In the cup, Patrick Wilton finished first on the water in a Squib but lost out on corrected time.

In the fast fleet Mike and Rani Pert in their Wayfarer took the early lead but couldn't keep the Larks behind for long enough.

Christopher Fish and Joe Hunt undertook on the first spinnaker reach and stormed away to win with only Wilton finishing in front on the water.

Matthew Stearn/Adam Owen was the second Lark by just over a minute and in another Lark Harry Pynn/Clare Gosling were a close third.

The Victory Plate followed a similar pattern with Fish/Hunt leading for most of the race but Stearn/Owen appeared from nowhere and where able to hold their spinnaker tighter thus taking the lead and eventually the Victory Plate.

Harry Pynn, this time with Will Branton, cleverly kept out of the tide to sneak past Fish into second, while Fish tried to cover and catch Stearn on the run through the Rocks.

Of the other classes the top boat in both races were the Perts (Wayfarer) 5th and 5th, James Hayward (Cadet) 11th and 17th, Derek Jacobs (Dragonfly) 26th and 20th, Tom Chippendale (Laser) 15th and 6th and Patrick Wilton (Squib) 9th and 16th.