ALTHOUGH two races remain in the Royal Windermere Yacht Club's 17ft Class season, some boats have already been taken off the water.

Not long ago the three-race series for the Trapp Cup did not count for the Class Averages and fleet numbers dwindled.

Nowadays they do count, yet turnouts are still smaller.

All the top boats have sailed enough races to qualify and some have already gone into storage.

Even so, 11 boats turned out for the first Trapp Cup race on Saturday and were rewarded with an excellent sail in the fresh south westerly winds.

The winner by a comfortable margin was Fred Tattersall's Liberty.

After a good start south of the ferry, he led round every mark and built up a big enough lead to escape the nerve-wracking final beat, which faced the chasing pack as the wind died away late in the afternoon.

The race for second place was a close as it could be, with David McCann's Freedom and Gay Crossley's Whisper virtually side by side throughout the afternoon.

Whisper finally gained an edge on the third beat south to Beech Hill, but when the wind finally faded following torrential rain anything could have happened as the yachts struggled to the finish.

Eventually, Whisper drifted across the line only 10 yards ahead to clinch second place, yet it took Freedom another five minutes to finish third.

Behind these two, Mike Craddock's Vanity, Mike Walsh's Rhythm, Brian Cartmell's Wind'ard III and Pete Catherall's Osprey had all been contesting the places in the strong winds.

Everything changed later with Wind'ard and Osprey falling away and Vanity and Rhythm becalmed south of the Bull Heads.

Vanity finally beat Rhythm into fifth place while Jim Hoyle's Nepenthe came from behind to deny Wind'ard III a place in the first six.

In the final race of the non-counting Sunday series for the Dennis Hope Trophy, the winner was James Nield's Amira with Rhythm second and Nepenthe third.