THE grey mist, poor visibility and even worse forecast made the Flushing Sailing Club replacement officer of the day choose short courses in order to get the fleets home again before the conditions worsened, writes Harold Martin.

Geoff Davies, skipper of Scorpion and meteorologist of note, stated categorically that tonight's weather showed that global warming has ended and please could it come back again as soon as possible?

In A Fleet, Peter Knight in Pink Gin made a very good start and it took the faster sports boats a long time to catch up and overtake him. These boats are so fast that they came through the pre-start zone of V Class as they approached the line and this caused problems for both fleets.

In A Class, the skipper of Minx, renowned for his sang-froid, became excited when he saw that the spinnaker had been hoisted upside down. After detailed technical discussion they decided to drop the sail and fly it in the dull conventional manner. However, the crew were quite pleased to report that so far this season the skipper has not yet hit Black Rock.

In some of the latest sports boats it has been discovered that the self draining holes in the hull actually let in water when the boat is still and only evacuates the rain when the boat is moving so that wet feet and backsides were the order of the day.

In V Class, Halcyon made a good start and led at each mark and established a good lead and so came up the harbour confidently only to fall into a large hole in the wind and nearly stop. John Cruise in Mary Boon came up from behind with the breeze and almost overtook but happily for Halcyon they managed to cross the line with five seconds to spare.

We now look forward to racing in warm and dry conditions. I found to my cost that my waterproofs only leak when the rain falls so that is another thing that needs replacing. Roll on the summer.

Results - A Class: 1, Pink Gin (Peter Knight); 2, Macavaty (John Murrell); 3, Scorpion (Geoff Davies). E Class: 1, Amneris (Peter); 2, Sidewinder; 3, Moonlighter (Paul Collins). U Class: 1, Mary Boon (John Cruise); 2, Halcyon (Harold Martin); 3, Red Gauntlet (Bill Hunt).