WINDY conditions greeted competitors at the 2016 Yacht Clubs of Weymouth Dinghy Regatta.

As usual, the weekend was incredibly popular seeing more than 100 dinghies across the seven fleets.

Castle Cove Sailing Club (CCSC) were again the host club for the event.

On day one, Bill Barker, the principal race officer was in charge of the three classes sailing in Portland Harbour, while Iain Jones took his four fleets out into Weymouth Bay.

For the second day, both courses were taken inside the harbour.

On the Imogen course, the Asymmetric, Contender and Slow Handicap fleets enjoyed the strong winds which reached more than 25 knots on the first day.

The Contender fleet had the largest entry of the event with more than 35 dinghies, using it as their National Championships.

The course and wind strength suited the 2015 Contender world champion, Simon Mussell who won the class ahead of Ben Holden in second and Graham Scott in third.

In the Slow Handicap fleet, sailing in a Topper was CCSC Cadet, Will Adler.

The youngster managed to win every race and was presented with a number of awards including the performance of the regatta prize.

Will said: “It was very breezy on both days and I was competing in a mixed fleet of 14 boats.

“The windy conditions suited me well and I won all the races on both days ending first overall.

“I came away with first youth, first Slow Handicap and best performance in a mixed fleet.

“Well done to the other competitors, in particular my fellow Topper sailor Ollie Fellows who came third.”

Second place in the Slow Handicap fleet went to Dave Elson sailing a Scorpion. His crew was CCSC Cadet, Lizzie Bowers.

In the Asymmetric fleet, there was a wide variety of dinghies including Cherubs, RS 800s and a Moth.

Competition at the top of the fleet was between Castle Cove sailors, Sam Pascoe and Glen Truswell sailing an International 14 and Alex Adams sailing his Moth.

After the six races had been completed, Pascoe and Truswell were narrowly ahead of Adams by one point.

A notable performance came from young siblings, Emma and James Bishop. The CCSC pair recently took to an RS 800 making the event their first in the boat. They finished in eighth place.

On the viking course, a few travelling Ospreys attended the weekend ahead of their National Championships in August.

CCSC sailors, Kevin Francis and Phil Male showed exceptional boat speed against the other Ospreys. They were the clear winners of the class.

Weymouth Sailing Club (WSC) member, Terry Curtis sailing with replacement crew, Nick Broomhall, finished in second and Ben and Simon Hawkes from Wimbleball Sailing Club placed third.

In the OK fleet, Charlie Cumbley held off Richard Burton from Burton Sailing Club. Dave Bourne from Erith Yacht Club placed in third.

The Fast Handicap fleet consisted mainly of Fireballs. Kevin Hope and Russell Thorne won the class with five race wins, followed by Phil Popple and Gareth Wilkinson in second.

The Bytes also saw the opportunity to use the event as their National Championships making them the second largest class.

It was Louis Saunders from Combs Sailing Cub who was the winner closely followed by Andrew Snell from Datchet Water Sailing Club.

WSC member Celia Rushton put in a good performance over the weekend to finish in 10th place.

As always, the event was very well supported by many volunteers on the water and ashore. Without them, it would not possible to run such an event.