THE devil is in detail; the title of this series is ‘Frostbite’ and if proof were needed Sunday was very chilly and windy with its associated wind chill factor cooling it further, writes Ian Symonds. 

It had rained in the morning but that had mercifully largely passed our corner; as if we hadn’t had enough!

John Calvert, our commodore, was Race Officer and he tackled things in his usual apparently relaxed but in truth very considered manner. John did have the fourteen to twenty mph westerly to take into account as well as keeping the event going to avoid overly chilled sailors.

The Turbo fleet started with three and was soon down to two. George Cousins took two wins in his Musto Skiff and Peter Knight’s B14 the second places. The Lasers, sadly a fleet that was so strong and is appearing to lose numbers hopefully temporarily had just three boats. Gemma O’Rourke took both wins, Rafa Oakes the seconds and Mark Fernihough a third and a retirement.

The cats, that is the Darts, had two competing boats. Jeremy and Sabine Underwood took the firsts, Ant James and Millie Rogers the seconds. Our asymmetric fleet excelled themselves with six racing crews. Henry and Ashley took both races, Kyle and Madeline the seconds, Kyle’s daughter Freya and crew Jess a third with Milly Tregaskes and Taryn Banks the other third honour. This is a great fleet and one in which Restronguet has some national level competitors.

The clubs other growing and competitive fleet is in the medium handicap. Sunday saw two Europes, three Aeros out. The results are often mixed and like the Lasers are allegedly handicapped by the handicap system. In a world where we hear of false positives and so on the fear is that handicaps in short races are handicapping fair results; not a level sailing field? Discuss? In the results Len Trenoweth took race one and George Lenney race two.

In the infamous slow handicap, usually the Mirrors, one boat started and didn’t finish. Guy English and Becca set out in Guy’s Firefly but as with the Mirrors there was no conclusive result.

Three more Frostbite races before the famous Christmas Pudding race.