The vicarious thrill of watching all those victorious British Olympians is exciting and can leave you emotionally drained. But there is nothing to match the experience of taking part yourself, and dinghy sailors can do so without having to run 120 miles a week like Mo Farah or spend 30 hours a week in the gym like Max Whitlock. No, for most club dinghy sailors, a weekly session actually racing and pulling the boat up the beach after the race is their exercise.

Weekly races are the usual fare, but every now and again there is a regatta: more exciting, more challenging and, for the victors, even more satisfying.

So it was with palpable tension that the 26 contestants crowded into the club room at Dittisham Sailing Club on Sunday to hear race officer Bernard Moles explain the starting procedure for the opening pursuit race of the sailing part of the Dittisham Regatta. A pursuit race has a complicated start sequence, with the slower boats starting ahead of the faster ones, each class starting according to their handicap, but with the beautifully ­simple outcome that the ­leading boat at the end of the allotted hour is the winner.

With a good, steady breeze from the east and glorious Rio-like sunshine, the regatta got under way on a huge figure-of-eight course, which included a leeward mark near the clubhouse for the TV cameras and the throngs of spectators.

A lone Topper started at zero hour and three and a half minutes later the Ditsum Belles’ newly acquired fleet of Qubas set off after them. The next large contingents were the Solos and Lasers, with the two Phantoms, the fastest boats in the fleet, starting no less than 19 minutes after the first starters.

John Clark broke away from the rest of the Solo fleet and quickly overhauled the early starters, with Pete Joscelyne in his Laser in hot pursuit.

A little overexcited, Joscelyne, for no apparent reason, flunked a gybe and found himself in somewhat cooler pursuit upside-down in the mercifully warm water of the estuary. Recovering well, he went on to take ­second place.

Les Moores and John Raad also escaped from the Solo pack and were neck-and-neck for the rest of the hour, with Moores eventually ­taking a hard-fought third place.

Race two and the format reverted to the usual ­handicap system, which meant that all 26 boats were on the start line together. This really sorted out the more savvy sailors from the also-rans, with those brave enough to be at the port end of the line gaining a race-winning advantage. There were moments of absolute chaos at the windward mark when the bulk of the chasing fleet arrived and the wind died momentarily, which then put paid to the chances of many a hopeful.

Once again it was John Clark who led, this time battling away with the Lasers of Peter Symons and Pete Joscelyne, with Clark, in the slower Solo, giving a masterclass in both effort and boat-handling skills to the Laser sailors and anyone near enough to witness them.

Clark triumphed on the water, making the handicap irrelevant, with Frank Seear doing his well-known ­impersonation of a serene senior Solo sailor, coming second and Symons in his Laser third.

In the middle of the fleet there were noteworthy performances from Catherine Johns in one of the Qubas and Pauline Mogridge in the Topper. Neither boat was helped by the conditions or the vagaries of the course, but it was good to see them plugging away, not giving up, and finishing relatively high up the table.

Worth mentioning is the fact that John Clark has now won both races in this event for the past three years.

The organisers may have to ­consider a special trophy – or perhaps get someone to tie a bucket under his Solo next year.

Back to the shore for the prize-giving, a barbecue and that most welcome sight of all, a barrel of beer, kindly donated by the Dittisham Regatta committee, all of which went down a treat.

All in all this was another really enjoyable Dittisham Regatta.

How the sailors of Dittisham SC manage to be competitive, yet at the same time relaxed, friendly and welcoming, is a secret many clubs would love to be privvy to. Long may it continue.