THE season's curtain raiser in the Solent, the Barclays Marine Finance Warsash Spring Series, may have given a strong indicator to the medal winners for the summer following a closely-fought contest which involved 250 boats and 2,000 competitors.

In the increasingly popular IRM class, the winning margin was less than a minute, and five different boats won races. It was not until the final race that Chris Hunt and Leon Christianikis' Farr 40 Assegai was certain of overall victory - by just two points.

Nick and Anne Haigh took time to get things right on Too Steamy. After a slow start they won the last three races, but it was too late to put them any higher than third overall, behind John Shepherd's Fair Do's.

The series was a battle between the Farr 40s and the Race One Ker 11.3s, with honours fairly evenly shared. The Farr 40s won two of the three podium slots but the 11.3s then took the next five positions ahead of the two more Farr 40s.

IRC Division 1 was dominated by Nick Hewson's Farr 52 Team Tonic, which also won the RORC Cervantes Trophy this weekend.

A second and three firsts left her well clear of the rest of the fleet.

Terry and Sue Robinson on Assuage won the first race but, with a couple of fourths, a second and a third, they were five points behind Team Tonic. Born Slippy and Thunder 27287 also won bottles of champagne provided by Barclays Marine Finance for the winning boats but failed to build a score.

Instead Kirriibilli, the new medium-sized Bnteau 47.7, skippered by Douglas Flynn, logged two thirds, a fifth and a second to take the third slot just three points behind Assuage and a full seven points clear of Born Slippy.

IRC Division 2 was a nail-biting battle with everything depending on the last race. ACP Sailing's Fastwave II and Jim Macgregor's Elan 40 Triple A with Flair were level on points with two firsts and two seconds each.

In the testing conditions Chris Brown brought Fastwave II, a Bnteau 40.7R, in five minutes before Triple A with Flair to win on corrected time. Another Poole-based boat, Harry Evans, who makes all the plastic beer glasses for Skandia Life Cowes Week, came in four seconds on Alvine XII behind Appledore Shipbuilders, but it provided a cushion of more than a minute on corrected time to secure third slot for the series.