A great evening's racing supported by local business Gooch Accident Repair Centre produced plenty of excitement at Oulton broad.

There was a real twist in the tale as their driver Ray Birnie snatched overall first place in the third heat from what appeared to be an inevitable walkover win for Go Tankers' Mike Toleman.

Despite frustrations with performance, Mike had taken first place in the earlier two heats only to suffer fuel pump problems as he waited to run in for his start in the last, managing to take fourth place after eventually starting.

The ironywas that, should he have been able to overcome his problem earlier, he may still have been able to win the trophy if he could have finished third, by only four points.

The Pallet Group Tom Roberts catamaran, despite its superior performance, failed to meet its handicap potential last week, finishing third.

Ten Hydroplanes signed in for the evening's event and as can be prevalent in this class, there were non starters and a heat re-run.

Once racing was in progress these drivers entertained as ever, the larger field of the Yamato OSY400's making the passing of the pack by the only Racing Hydroplane on the course, more and more difficult as they all funnelled into the buoy turn, right in front of the spectators.

Close results were not only restricted to Sportsboats as third place Sean Woods' 694 points was just held off by second Brad Holman (696), with Brian Shulver winning with 700, having competed in only two of the heats, this week in the lighter 2016 boat of Woods.

The Junior GT Class saw a good mixture of heat results with the three lesser powered GT15 craft being hard pressed by the faster GT15's.

Despite having managed one heat first place, Jayme Speller was third and more consistent driving by Thomas Mantripp gave him second position.

Taking his first 2017 win and driver of the evening, 10-year-old Joseph Haylock lifted the third of the Lowestoft Fishermans Widows & Orphans Trophies, all presented by Gooch's Jason Harwood. Bowls: Lowestoft Railway B team played Beccles Town B in the Suffolk (BE) League Two. Beccles won on three rinks to one. But Railway won overall by 64 points to 60 giving a match win 4-3. The winning rink for Railway was G Rose, R Davis and E Alcock who won by 28-8.