To the hapless dinghy sailors at Dittisham on Sunday, it was clearer than ever that the wind is a fickle friend… and foe.

Sometimes it almost seems to have favourites, while at other moments it appears to pick on blameless people to confound them utterly. You can almost hear its mind working: ‘I know I’m the result of high and low pressure ­systems and affected by the sun and clouds, but once I’m let out I can do almost anything I like.

‘I can hide behind hills, blast around moored boats, gust here, stop there. And just when you mere mortal sailors think you’ve got me harnessed for your simple pleasure, I’ll knock you down or leave you standing still.’

Setting off on the committee boat to lay his figure-of-eight course in a perfect force-two breeze under a cloudless blue sky, Paul Mogridge had little inkling that his decision to run a two-lap race, followed by one of three laps, would have such a fascinating outcome.

This was the first of the 14-race Autumn Points series, when the hitherto separate fleets combine to race against each other.

The wind gave an early ­indication of awkward behaviour when, just a moment or two before the start, it stalled momentarily, allowing just a handful of the 16 starters already in position near the line to get away cleanly.

Up the middle seemed to pay off best on the first beat – too far right and you hit the flood tide, too far left and there was less wind.

James Dodd in his Phantom and Jonathan Weeks sailing a Solo ­battled it out at the front for a ­couple of legs of the course until Dodd got away.

Behind Weeks, Bob Thomas, also in a Solo, was putting all of his ­considerable guile into catching his fellow veteran, but despite closing the gap was just a few seconds adrift at the finish.

On corrected time, Weeks was first, with Thomas second and Mike Bennett third – a clean sweep for the Solos, giving rise to a chorus of, ‘well, it was Solo weather’. (And it was – at least in race one.)

A lot less wind and a lot of tide at the second wing mark up under the river bank at Gurrow Point conspired to make the second race one of the most chaotic ever witnessed.

For the first two laps this part to the course was more or less ­manageable, but on the last lap there was slow-motion mayhem.

The two Phantoms – the fastest boats on the water – had managed to get a decent distance ahead of the chasing pack, but even they were seen to be having trouble ­getting round, having to tack ­several times and even then hitting the mark. As several sailors noted, the simplicity of the single, simple penalty gyration on the following downwind leg was no penalty at all compared with the sheer relief of having got round.

For the chasing Solos, which had seen the trouble the Phantoms had experienced, it was clear that ­pointing way above the mark was the solution. But to no avail: the tide still drove them down onto it and they were left desperately ­tacking many times in no wind. It took the leading Solo six attempts to get round.

Meanwhile, the Phantoms had drifted off downwind and were ­finishing. After these three had ­finished it looked as though the rest of the fleet was doomed to ­abandonment, and indeed it was almost 20 minutes before the next boat got clear. With the majority of the fleet now catching up and ­joining the queue, huge place changes occurred and many oaths to give up sailing altogether were – temporarily – sworn.

The Phantoms of James Dodd and Stuart Richardson bracketed the Solo of Jonathan Weeks for the first three places. In the event, no one was counted out on time and on the way back enough breeze reappeared to get the fleet safely home. Mind you, safety is a relative term, for it was the first time your correspondent had witnessed the whole fleet, with safety and ­committee boats shepherding them, coming back to the shore in the dark.

The next event is the River Dart Cup on Sunday. It is scheduled as a single long race, but since it is due to start at 10.30am, it ought to be over by nightfall.