EARLY morning walkers at Holland-on-Sea would have been surprised to see dinghy sailors out at sea as the sun rose at 4.30am for Clacton Sailing Club's traditional Solstice Sail.

Right on queue, the sun broke through the low cloud to reward the privileged few with a glorious sunrise as a flotilla of club Toppers and Topaz dinghies tacked and gybed in close formation.

Newcomers to the event this year, Mark and Cathy Venables even launched their Dart 16 catamaran to join the fun before heading up to the clubhouse for a well-deserved full English breakfast.

Racing then got under way with "Martin's Mile", which introduced an experimental format with competitors racing a measured nautical mile around two gybe marks.

Free to start whenever they chose and at liberty to make as many attempts as possible within an hour, individual timing was communicated on the water from the rescue boat.

Martin and Debbie Chivers, who had devised the event, were early pacesetters in their Dart 18 catamaran with a four minute and 48 second lap time and the challenge was on.

The southerly wind was building throughout the hour, such that times steadily improved as the sailors settled into their stride and learnt the fastest route.

Daniel Brzezinski, sailing his Dart 18 single-handed, made the most runs within the hour and experimented by coming into the gybe buoys wide, aiming to exit fast and close.

Larry Foxon, sailing with James Parson, in the Hurricane 5.9, hard on the heels of Pete Boxer and Eilish Dempsey, in the Dart 18, chose a riskier option to slam-gybe at the marks.

Mark Venables, who had by this time switched crews from his wife, made runs with each of his sons, George and Charlie, with the run times being kept secret from each other.

James Foxon, representing the dinghies, had to use all of his leverage to keep his Laser racing hard and flat on the reaches, while at the same time avoiding the catamarans on the busy race track.

In the end, outright boat speed was complimented by acceleration out of the gybe.

Although Larry's Hurricane was undoubtedly fastest over the water, it was the Darts that had the punch to get going again at the buoys.

Pete Boxer recorded the fastest time of 4m 25s with an average speed of over 13 knots but all agreed the format was a fun work-out that helped to sharpen boat-handling skills.