A HOST of talented sailors turned out in force for Llandudno Sailing Club’s annual Hotels Trophy recently.

The three-race series was contested by a somewhat reduced fleet, due to the absences of several juniors and adults attending championships all around the UK. This led to a closely-fought competition between the Laser and Supernova sailors.

After two fairly even races everything was to play for in the third race. Conditions became challenging as the wind increased, and two of the leading crews, Kevin Parvin (Supernova) and Mark Jackson (Laser) lost out completely after spectacular and unrecoverable capsizes in the shadow of the Little Orme.

Novices Tracy Bond and Simon Nichol suffered multiple capsizes - probably double-figures between them - but hung on doggedly to record a finish.

This left veteran Rob Davies, Joe Shelley and John Brown to fight it out for the podium places in their Lasers.

The battling trio swapped places throughout the third race, never more than ten metres away from each other and having to recover quickly from any mistakes. Brown finally eased ahead of the much-improved Davies, with Shelley just slipping back into third.

Over the three race series, Brown took the Hotels Trophy, with Davies second and Shelly third.