Your correspondent had a nasty incident with a clear plastic bag at Dittisham Sailing Club on Sunday writes Jonathan Weeks.

Wrapping itself neatly and invisibly round the rudder, it slowed the boat down and caused a mild shudder to resonate off the hull.

On the estuary you have to keep an eye open for seaweed and sticks, especially on springs when the tides dislodge everything from the shore and spread it round the river, but fortunately plastic bags are comparatively rare.

A couple of tugs on the rudder up-haul and it had gone, but it set me thinking how lucky we are to sail where we do, in spite of the need to cope with the tides and the odd confused tripper boat.

Last weekend I found myself in Berkshire and, being mildly obsessive about sailing, went and raced an identical boat to the one I have here at my old club at Maidenhead.

Boy do they have problems and boy aren't we the lucky ones.

The 50-acre lake there is infested with Canadian pond-weed, has been for years.

They've tried poisoning it but that upset the fish and was very costly, so now, once a year, they dye the whole lake dark green to stop the light getting down to the weed.

This year it hasn't rained that much so the water is very shallow and so in spite of the dye the weed is getting lots of sunlight and thriving.

The result is that you have to sail with your rudder half up, your centre-board half down and in places where it is really shallow you are allowed to call for 'room' for the bottom.

Even with these precautions, you have to constantly clear both foils otherwise you end up fuming at the back.

The self-seeded willow trees all round the lake cause the most amazing wind-shifts and shadows and the only redeeming feature is that by this time of the season the bright green water is delightfully warm so you don't need a wet or dry suit!

To add insult to injury they have to rent the water, albeit very reasonably, from a local landowner.

Back at Dittisham the Dart is warming gradually and wet-suits were winning over dry-suits, but the issue this Sunday was just how windy would it turn out to be?

The weather forecast put off many of the Solos, but the 19 knots gusting to 22 never really set in and thanks to race officer Patrick Bromley's skilful course setting, the fleets enjoyed some of the best reaching of the whole season so far.

Very few people capsized, one of the exceptions being Bevis Wright, who was so delighted at being on time for the start he threw caution to the wind and his body in the sea...

Over a dozen PY boats took to the water and it was good to see the whole male branch of the Ely family represented in a trio of Lasers.

In race one line honours went to James Dodd in his Phantom, but he could only manage third on corrected time with Sam Mogridge and Pete Joscelyne claiming first and second place respectively. There were some exciting battles for the minor places on the long beat back to the finish line.

In race two the same pair were first and second with Peter Symons looking tanned and relaxed after his trip to Brittany cruising into third place.

The Solos too enjoyed the great planeing conditions. One well-known Solo sailor whom we dare not name, surrendered two potential podium positions by, in the first race hitting Bob Thomas' boat and having to do penalty turns and in the second laying the boat down in the water for no apparent reason while enjoying a healthy lead.

Race one was won by Mike Bennett from Bob Thomas after a terrific tussle, while Bob got his revenge in race two with a runaway victory over Mike. Roy Pryor, who seems to have adopted third place as his default position in most races this year, did it again on Sunday, and was never very far behind the leaders.

Just to demonstrate we are not simply dinghy sailors, out on the sea earlier in the week the Old Gaffers Association had 16 boats of various vintage competing in a special regatta and Dittisham sailors, ever keen to dem­onstrate their versatility, were involved in a couple of triumphs, with Mike Bennett and Gil Haywood crewing and helming the first and second boats in their class.

It seems that sailing round here can be a full-time occupation if you are lucky enough to get invited and there's more at Ditti­sham this Thursday even­ing at 6pm and again on Sunday at 9.30am! It's shaping up to be another vintage sailing summer.