EVESHAM Sailing Club played host to a team of six boats from the Defford-based Arden club for the annual competition for the Avon Trophy.

There were three hour-long races during the day, but the 12 competitors had to cope with a very strong flow on the river following recent heavy rain.

The available wind was very fickle but nevertheless the sun shone all day which compensated to some degree.

Each race saw an upstream start with a difficult beat to the distant bout and it was a matter of keeping in close to the riverbank in the slacker water to make any reasonable headway.

Nial Campbell and his crew from Arden showed they were master of the conditions by winning the first two races but having said that Evesham crews took second through to seventh place in each race.

The last race saw David Eales of Evesham persevering to stay close to Campbell and with him making a mistake at the last mark it allowed Eales to sail though to claim first spot.

Again, all of the home crews finished well. David Bowen of Arden in his Redwing, in near calm conditions managed to capsize which gave the rescue boat something to do.

The overall individual winner was Campbell of Arden with Eales and Hayward of Evesham finishing second and third respectively.

However, because of the very high scoring of the home team generally over the day, Evesham was the clear overall winner by 61 points to 104.