A Burst of wind on the start line led to a stream of protests and penalties for the multihull fleet in the third Royal Southampton Yacht Club's Winter Series race last weekend.

Winds for the first race were expected to be between 8 and 12 knots from the west, providing near perfect conditions - but, just before the start sequence, the breeze eased off and started to shift around, causing commotion among the multihulls, and leading to a protest and alternative penalty.

After an eight-mile course and two more alternative penalties, Trivia won, 28 seconds ahead of Kokomo, who was just three seconds ahead of Scooby III.

Class 1 saw series leader X-Parrot score yet another win, with NJOS four minutes behind and Hooligan IV third 27 more seconds adrift.

Class 2 saw club vice commodore Roger Townsend first in Backchat by over a minute and half from the Sigma 33 Hooligan with K-Vector II third.

The committee boat moved nearer the main channel to set the start for the second race of the day as the tide was fully on the ebb. After a delay of 15 minutes, the multihulls became involved with shipping in the main channel, leading to more protests.

Class 1 started well but, in the rush to clear the line, Jokers Wild (a J-80) had her transom hung rudder 'removed' in an incident with Spirit of Plane Sailing. Both retired.

Hooligan IV (JOD 35) won the race by two minutes from Maybee III (MG335), who were followed a minute later by NJOS(Corby 36).

Fat Diva was T-boned in a collision during the Tyco Healthcare Hamble Winter Series last weekend as the fleet enjoyed exhilerating racing conditions in contrast to the storms of the previous weekends.

The Prima 38, racing in IRC 1 class was joined back in the repair yard by a 707 which also holed in a skirmish with a competing 707. El Gringo, the Ker 11.3, blew a kite halyard which became entangled with the race committee boat's VHF antennae.

In the sportsboat fleet, racing closer inshore, there were double victories in two classes with Ian Southworth's Chilli chaser in the 707s and Simon McLean's STBD in the 1720s. On the same course Malcolm Donald's classic folkboat Celia Mary notched up a memorable win in the IRC class 4.

Black fleet provisional winners - IRM race 1: Nick Haigh (Too Steamy), IRM race 2: Chris Little (Bounder), IRC Zero: David Flynn (Kiribilli), Class 1: Jon Perry - Firestorm.