Top showing from Folkard at Beccles

Week five of series B at Beccles Amateur Sailing Club saw sailors enjoy a moderate northerly creating a good beat downriver throughout the afternoon racing schedule.

Week five of series B at Beccles Amateur Sailing Club saw sailors enjoy a moderate northerly creating a good beat downriver throughout the afternoon racing schedule.

Soon after the first Optimist race which was won by Rowan Curtis, the Chinese handicap pursuit had 14 assorted dinghies to the line including a lonely Topper helmed by Charlie Folkard. With Folkard away first, the remaining fleet were left ever-chasing as the lone Topper seemed difficult to catch and even a two-pronged assault in the dying minutes of the half-hour race by Mark Langston in a Laser and Richard Deller in an Enterprise could not stop the performance of the day by Folkard as he finished a good 200 yards ahead at the horn.

The Coronation Cup saw the wind freshen, causing some start-line mayhem but almost immediately Richard and John Salisbury powered into a lead as the breeze strengthened which suited their Enterprise Agapanthus crossing the line three-and-a-half minutes before Richard Deller and Georgie Roll in their Ent Cuddles. Tim Haycock and Jane Thomas however sailed strongly in their Norfolk Beagle which earned them a second place on corrected time.

Charlie Folkard continued his good form in the first Topper race which had him in a dog fight with Jake Smalls over the course and just managed a win in race one although a determined sail by Smalls in race two forced Folkard to settle for second place.

Three Norfolks competed in the Bacchante race, with Beagle retiring through a broken tiller extension, leaving Sue Grief and Danny Johnson in Brambling battling it out with Ron Haynes and Roger Campling in Dragonfly. Some steady sailing by the Dragonfly crew saw them capitalize again this week as they steered their boat over the line in top spot.

The Kerrich Cup for Enterprises had a thrilling duel from the start between Cuddles and Agapanthus. They were never a couple of boat lengths apart over the three rounds and after the Commodore was hindered by another boat on rounding the basin marker, team Salisbury generously slowed up to continue the dual which eventually saw Cuddles in first.