The crew of Carnivore was ready to impress after doing the Tumby Bay Yacht Club proud at the recent National 125 Championships held at Henley Sailing Club in Adelaide over the Christmas/New Year break.

In those championships Henderson and Gossink were super-consistent, not finishing worse than fourth as they sailed to a third place overall finish in the championship.

They also took home the victory trophy for the warm-up invitational race.

Light conditions greeted the fleet at Tumby Bay on Saturday.

Taking on Carnivore were the light weight father and son combination of Chris and Sebastian Trenberth in Smorstok, Mark Lewis and Erina Russ in Voodoo, and Andrew Stanley and Alysha Gossink sailing the newly acquired and renamed Rubidium.

All four boats made a clean start but the field quickly spread.

Carnivore quickly sailed away and Smorstok had Voodoo's measure in the light conditions so the typical battle we have come to expect from these old campaigners did not eventuate.

Trailing the fleet was the crew of Rubidium, who were happy just to get around the course and get their spinnaker up and down for each reach and run.

The second race started in a much tighter fashion with Smorstok leading the fleet to the top mark with Carnivore and Rubidium in close pursuit only a matter of seconds back.

A superior spinnaker set saw Carnivore take the lead while a tangled spinnaker halyard put paid to Rubidium's chances.

Chris and Sebastian Trenberth sailed strongly though to concede only two minutes to Carnivore at the finish to show they are a boat on the improve.

This weekend four Tumby Bay 125 boats will go in search of success at the State 125 titles at Wallaroo.

n By?Andrew Stanley