Stewart Mitchell wins Solway Yacht Club's Palnackie Pursuit Race

Solway Yacht Club’s leading international sailor, Stewart Mitchell, took his Olympic Finn to a well-deserved win in the club’s annual Palnackie Pursuit Race.

After a day of gales, Sunday still promised a very windy sail up the twisty channel to Palnackie and back.

A strong entry initially included the cadet training fleet but given the conditions and difficult navigation, instructors James Bishop and Hannah Davison withdrew the entries to concentrate on training in the more open water.

Race officer, Duncan Gillespie, started the fleet away progressively with slowest rated boats first, fastest last, all to handicapped times.

Downwind but upstream to the elbow, Toby Iglehart, the club’s outstanding cadet, held his lead with Stewart Biggar closing while further back the two fast Finns were already working their way through the fleet. Reaching the turning buoy just short of Palnackie harbour the fleet was bunched up and once round, it was back downstream towards the finish, Iglehart and Biggar still ahead.

Increasingly vicious gusts made for challenging conditions with frequent short tacking required across the narrow channel, forcing the crews to work very hard. As they approached the Devil’s Reach, Mitchell’s Finn finally had the leaders in sight. Back towards the Black Rock off South Glen, the Mitchell Finn took the lead while Biggar had caught the Iglehart Topper for second. McColm made it both Finns in the top three, displacing Iglehart to fourth, Ian Purkis and Scott Train finishing fifth, the first of the double handed crews.

With only one non-starter and one retirement plus a capsize or two, it was a credit to all the finishers to have completed the race. Special congratulations to Katy Gascoigne