The 13th Falmouth Working Boat “World” Championships were held over the weekend, once again hosted by St Mawes Sailing Club, writes Nigel Sharp.

This year, for the first time and thanks to sponsorship from the St Mawes Hotel, each boat was fitted with a GPS tracker which allowed fans to follow the racing live on-line and competitors to analyse it afterwards.

With force six to seven winds forecast for Friday, Race Officer John Maunder rightly decided to cancel that day’s racing, but by Saturday morning the weather had improved greatly, with sunshine and a good sailing breeze.

With the imminent arrival of a cruise liner threatening to cause some disruption, the first race was shortened after just one round, but that was no bad thing as it was hoped that Friday’s two lost races would be squeezed into the rest of the weekend.

The winner on corrected time in the 16-boat B Class fleet was the 1895 St Mawes-based syndicate boat Florence, with Rita second and Grace third.

Grace won both the second race - with Evelyn, another 19th century St Mawes based syndicate boat, in second place – and the third, putting her in a very strong position overnight.

Although it was hoped to hold two races on Sunday, the weather - initially at least - refused to cooperate.

The sun shone but, for an hour and a half after the scheduled start time, there was barely a breath of wind. But then a line of gentle sea breeze was seen to be moving slowly towards the race area, and the course was quickly set up, although there would only be time for one final race.

This was won by Nellie May, but Grace’s second place was enough to give her the championships with Nellie May (last year’s winner) second and Rita (the winner in 2013 and 2014) third.

Grace’s victory was a real family affair as she was helmed by Flushing's Dan Tregaskes - whose late uncle Charles Jeffrey previously owned her - and amongst his crew were his wife Polly and their ten-year-old daughter Milly, and the chair of the championship committee Helena White, who is expecting a baby.

In the three-boat C Class fleet, Leila and Lottie had identical results with two firsts and two seconds, but the championship went to Lottie as she won the last race.