GUNFLEET Sailing Club held the fourth and final race in their Spring Series.

Andy Dunnett claimed another win to ensure he took the trophy overall.

In a day that saw a mixture of sunshine and hail stones, plus a gusty offshore wind, it was little surprise that the competitors looked anxiously at the weather as they rigged their craft.

As the boats jostled for position, on the very top of the tide, some helms proved a little too eager and, as the start gun echoed across the water, a second sound drew attention to the individual recall flag, highlighting that a number of boats had jumped the line.

In his haste to correct this error, Rob Lockett capsized in his Laser and became parted from the craft.

However, it didn’t take him long to regain contact with it and get back in the thick of the action.

At this early point it was Dunnett, in his Laser, that held back the rest of the fleet as they headed up the coast on a fetch to the Kingscliff buoy.

Once round, it was a broad reach out to the Seaward mark before sheeting hard in to beat in towards the shore. Things seemed to be going well for Dunnett as he ran back out to sea on the fourth leg but, at that point, confusion seemed to set in and, instead of sailing close hauled down the coast to the Eastcliff buoy, he decided to retrace his beat in to shore again.

Having suddenly picked-up on his error, he successfully got back on track but had dropped several places in the meantime.

A little further back it was the Philpot brothers that, once again, led the slow handicap fleet in their Topaz.

At the end of the first lap, there was so little between the top three places that it was still clearly anyone’s race.

However, after further capsizes, and some interesting wind shifts, positions swapped and swapped again.

Surprisingly, and very impressively, Dunnett had worked his way back up the fleet and squeezed into the top slot at the very last minute, claiming victory in the race and taking the series overall.

Results: Spring Series - overall: 1 Laser – Andy Dunnett, 2 Topaz – Tom and Ed Philpot, 3 Laser – Robert Lockett.

n Walton and Frinton Yacht Club held race four in their Spring Series.

Glen Bacon took both the race and series honours, with Martin Jenkins second.