A lively easterly wind, blowing down the Welsh Harp towards the dam gave a taxing windward leg to West Hendon and a splendid spinnaker run from Staples Corner to Club in Wembley SC's Midweek Series on Wednesday.

Colin Brockbank and Martin Hughes' "Philosophical Salmon" led the Merlin fleet from the start to win easily from Mark Candelas' "Smooth Operator" which had the benefit of Geoff O'Neill as crew, both missing their normal partners.

Bobi Barkanay and Mike Shaw, who slipped so disastrously from second to tenth the previous week, reversed the process by coming up from a poor start to finish third in "Newark Eel".

Breaking the halliard while hoisting the mainsail, Paul Beard and Jo Wells quickly moved to crew for two rivals who, had been planning to sail singlehanded as Wembley SC Firefly Fleet rules allow.

Jo helped Steve Sargeant to come second behind David Evans and Karen Garlick but Paul couldn't quite get William Gibbons to beat John and Andrew Wilcock for third place.

Frank Pearce and Dave Moroni continued their successful run in the GP14 series by winning again from John Shepherd and Bernie Loughnan, with Stan Marks and Chris Hall third.

Robert Janering won the Laser race from Joe Farwell. Finding the gusty winds hard work for sexagenerian muscles, Roger Whitney, who has been racing on the Welsh Harp since before the rest of the Laser fleet were born, had to settle for third place.

Sunday morning's race in Wembley's Summer Series had a westerly wind blowing up the Welsh Harp, enabling Merlins to plane under their colourful spinnakers from Neasden to West Hendon. Leslie Ross and Tony Wakelin made their usual well-timed starts in both races, but had a hard job to keep "Steppenwolf" ahead of Maurice Cleal and Tim Unneman's "Seveneye".

Particularly in the first race, the wind was bouncing off not only the trees on the North shore, but the more recent willows on the far side, so the shifts became almost impossible to predict.

As the first class to start, the Merlin leader is the pathfinder whose mistakes others can see and take a different route.

However, Ross has not been a national champion twice for nothing and covered Cleal on the final upwind pegs, keeping between his rival and the wind to win both races.

Mark Candelas, with a new Wembley member crewing "Smooth Operator", took advantage of some rogue windshifts to snatch third place from David and Barbara Bland's "Grand Cru", who did the same to finish third in the midday race.

The different standards of the Merlin and GP14 fleets was shown when Keith Watson and Sam Waddoups decided not to risk a capsize by flying spinnaker but still won from Brian Jefferies and Richard Malden and Stan Marks and Milton McIntosh, whereas any Merlin not setting spinnaker would have come last.

The steadier midday wind encouraged more GP14s to set spinnakers, but the 'W' team won again, this time from Andrew Thomas and Anka Huber, with Gary Stewart and Fanny Mitchell third. They must do better this weekend, when GP helmsmen from all over the country arrive for the GP14 Masters' Championships for those at least 40 years old.

The Lasers found the windward legs hard work without a crew to share the sitting-out, Julian Bradley led for the first two laps, but was caught on the last by Steve Janering.

James Dodsworth won the midday race from Francis Bucknallm who, having finished third in the morning, was the only Laser helmsman to finish in the first three in both races. Robert Janering was third.

Paul Beard and Jo Wells, clearly the best Firefly duo on the Harp, won both races from David Evans and James Anderson, with Douglas Maxwell third.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.