LESS XPENSE staved off the challenge of Waverider to take the class one honours by a single point in the Guernsey Yacht Club’s Bucktrout Championship Week. And although conditions were far from ideal, with light winds for much of the week, the other classes also turned out to be closely-fought affairs.

The opening day proved to be a false dawn, with a fine breeze resulting in excellent close racing for the yachts in the morning and by the afternoon the wind was north-westerly four gusting five during the dinghy classes.

In the lasers, three radials were sailed by youths and two full rigs were sailed by more mature members Peter Atkinson and Mark Huntley, who had not been sailing for a while, and consequently there were some spectacular capsizes in the breezy conditions. Nevertheless, all completed the races.

Five GP14s, an Albacore, a Finn and an RS 400 began the afternoon in the mixed dinghies fleet but by the final race of the day only four starters remained as the rescue boats were kept very busy.

The following day’s two races were completed without incident in a north-westerly four but the winds were to decrease for the remainder of the competition.

At 6pm on the third day, conditions were still although the wind gradually breathed in from the north-west, much to the unhappiness of the Smokey’s crew, who were stuck in the marina.

However, two good races were held in north-westerly two/three and the strengthening south-going tide made it tactically challenging, particularly in the second race, with a couple of very experienced skippers paying the price for getting it wrong.

Gordon Wilson with Tomahawk, in a quest for more speed, flew his spinnaker upside down.

At this stage it was very close in both classes, with Waverider having three firsts and Less Xpense two while class two was the same for Mustard Mitt II and Banjaard respectively.

Gentle conditions continued for the remainder of the week, although there was just enough wind to complete all of the races, and after surviving a protest on the last race, Jamie Hamilton’s Less Xpense finished one point ahead of Mike Bennett’s Waverider in class one.

Mustard Mitt II, skippered by Jim Nicolle, took the class two honours by two points from Banjaard and John Falla.

In the dinghies, Alan Harris won the Lasers on countback from brother Paul and Charles Cooper was the mixed dinghies victor.