Saundersfoot Sailing Club's Annual 'Coppet Week Regatta' brought over 90 entrants, their boats, crews, and families to Saundersfoot from May 29 to June 3. Most of the entrants were familiar faces who return year after year for this essentially family/friendly event, and it attracts dinghy sailors from all parts of the spectrum - ex world champions at one extreme to the youngest family member entering his/her first open competition in a Topper. Unlike Coppet Week events in recent years, there were no interruptions of the sailing programme through bad weather. Poor visibility threatened the Tuesday race, but the mirk cleared sufficiently to permit the race to continue. That apart, each day of the event was graced with a stiff force 3-5 S-SW wind in the shelter of the bay, giving level seas, a beam reach for the first leg, hairy moments at the exposed windward mark, a spinnaker leg to the Gybe mark at Amroth, and a beat back to harbour which sorted the men from the boys. Even the most experienced competitors were caught out by these innocuous conditions and admitted to an early bath, or even several early baths, but it was all very orderly and the patrol boats had very few emergency calls. All this activity took place on an inshore course presenting a splendid spectacle to the many visitors to Saundersfoot and enhancing the reputation of Saundersfoot as a first class sailing venue. A big thank you to the Saundersfoot professional fishermen who picked their way patiently through a milling throng on their way to and from the harbour. There is much talk of 'inclusion' these days and there was certainly much 'inclusivity' evident in the race results - the top 10 overall places comprised two International Canoes, two Fireballs, two RS 700s, two Phantoms and two Merlin Rockets. The 'High Tech' school of thought put in a brief appearance in the shape of 'moths-on-stilts' with hydrofoil keels which lifted the entire boat out of the water, but further development is needed - one 'flew' through the whole fleet to the Harbour Mark, and then took so long to tack it was overtaken by a Topper. Overall results were as follows: 1. Robin Wood (Saundersfoot SC ) International Canoe; 2. Alex Bale (Chew Valley SC) Fireball; 3. Chris Martin (Midland SC ) Merlin Rocket; 4. David Aston (Llandegfedd SC) RS 700; 5. Keith McDonald Fireball. The leading 'local' Saundersfoot SC entrants were father/son Nick Berridge (Phantom) 9th and Govan Berridge (Laser) 11th. Govan was also, and by a mile, the leading Junior entrant after a week of mixing it with the big boys in style. There were some very fine performances from Saundersfoot locals and from Coppet Week regular visitors to be reported at another time. Suffice to say this was, as a sailing event per se, one of the best Coppet Weeks for many years.

ANCIENT MARINER