SUNDAY was a fabulous day for sailing on the Avon with a strong steady breeze blowing straight up the river along.

The warm autumn sunshine again encouraged a large turnout of Evesham club members to take advantage of the ideal conditions.

The tightly packed fleet roared off at the start of the first of two races to turn just above the weir and revel in the speed and spray as the boats surged down to the railway bridge.

There was a fair crop of capsizes, Roger Middleton in his Comet, the Enterprise of the Baylis's that catapulted them in a short dare devil flight before a soaking, while Norman Drew and Clive Edwards in their Lark and Enterprise also came to grief.

The British Moth of Ian Edwards, the Lark of Simon Styles and Peter Green in his Solo were the three boats that ended up in a high-speed fight for the lead.

Although the Lark was the first to cross the line the gap wasn't big enough to reduce the time handicap and, Edwards and Green locked together behind, took first and second with Styles loosing out by eight-hundredths of a second!

The second race again saw some competitors dicing with disaster but the Styles' intentions were clear at the start as they rocketed into the lead.

Paul and Anne Baylis went into second where they stayed ahead of the battle for third that saw Tony Jacks experience a spectacular failure when his mast was blown down with the subsequent watery finish leaving the hard concentrating Mike Long in third.