Fickle winds and testing tides, combined with last- minute problems with a crucial committee boat, added to the sense of competition in the sixth race of the Royal Southampton Winter Series.

The race officer team could not get the committee vessel to start when the fleet arrived at the start line but a substitute yacht was commandeered and arrived at the starting area just in time to get the multihulls away in eight knots of northerly breeze.

The tricky conditions made for large margins in the multihull class with first-placed Carbon Tiger (Brian Haynes) over four and half minutes ahead of Trivia (Mike Wigmore) who took second, with Shakatak (Peter Ward-Jenkins) four minutes later in third place.

Class 1 (IRC) was delayed while the start line was relaid due to a windshift, and went off on a similar course of seven miles but when the wind dropped to four knots after noon, they struggled to finish within the time limit of 2pm.

Eventually four entrants either retired or were out of time (the nearest was Jokers Wild, who finished just over two minutes after 2.00pm.).

Njos (Tim Octon) got his first win of the series, with a margin over series leader X-Parrot of just under five minutes, with Ed Broadways' Hooligan IV third some half an hour later.

The smaller yachts in the Class 2 fleet also struggled to complete the course with Backchat first by 40 seconds, Hooligan second and Starspray third four minutes later.

While having a shorter course, Class 3 saw just one yacht sweep past the finish, never able to return thanks to the strong tide and very little breeze, while another yacht was swept on to a mark and lost minutes trying to get uptide of it before rounding.