Manx Sailing and Cruising Club’s annual Frostbite Regatta took place on Boxing Day with a fleet of 16 boats who took to the water under brilliant blue skies and with a mostly light, allegedly easterly breeze.

Traditionally this is a pursuit race where boats are started at times related to their speed handicaps so that if they were sailed to those handicaps they would all finish level at a fixed time, 12pm in this case.

So the slowest boats, the RS Teras sailed by juniors Jake Walker and Charlie Watterson, started first at 11am followed at irregular intervals by James Walker in the Streaker, various Lasers and the Whiteleggs in the Enterprise.

Then at 11.16am the rest, including Dave Batchelor’s Supernova, the RS Aero 7s of Simon Cain, Tom Watterson, Will Osbourn and Teddy Dunn and your correspondent in the Finn.

Jake found a useful bit of breeze on the startline and slipped away from the other Tera to establish a substantial lead by the time the next boats started. He held that lead for a good while despite having to cope with the problem of not having boats in front of him showing what the wind was doing.

On this occasion it was playing its usual easterly tricks with large shifts, calm patches and occasional sharp gusts one of which caught out newcomer Mike Love who was the first and only capsize in a Laser borrowed from the commodore. Lasers do like to assert their superiority over anyone new taking the reins.

Your correspondent spotted some breeze on the west side of the lake and started encouragingly quickly in it, but soon it moved away to the middle where the rest of the fast fleet were waiting.

Therefore, the Finn was more or less plumb last going round the first mark and not much better for the rest of the next two laps despite supposedly being the fastest boat in the fleet.

Meanwhile, the Walker Tera was still well out in front but dad James in the Streaker was catching up, with the RS Aeros of Dunn and Watterson also closing.

The rest of the fleet were proceeding round in a bit of a lump with some shouting for room at each mark and some place swaps but little in the way of big gains.

With around 10 minutes left your correspondent caught a bit of breeze and, having picked up speed, noted an inside gap at the next mark which was big enough for the Finn.

Despite cries of ‘you can’t go in there’, there was little they could do to stop yours truly and that took out half the fleet.

Heading a little further to the west again on the next leg dealt with most of the rest and, on rounding what turned out to be the last mark without interference from other boats, your correspondent spotted a Tera a little way in front and passed it just before the horn went signifying the end of the race.

At this point there were boats all round the course so it was hard to be sure what the final position was.

At the prizegiving in the dinghy park, race officer Bryan Quayle announced the winners to the competitors and an enthusiastic crowd of onlookers.

First junior and fourth overall was Jake Walker in the Tera, with your correspondent picking up third place!

Second was Tom Watterson but in first, winning the SE Quayle Trophy for this event for the fifth time in succession – this time only by a whisker - was Teddy Dunn.

JERRY COLMAN