Portmore Insurance Royal Lymington Yacht Club Spring Series - Day 4
by Hannah Neve 29 Apr 2013 20:33 BST
28 April 2013
Portmore Insurance Spring Series Races 7 and 8 at Lymington © Hannah Neve
After a short postponement to allow the wind to build to around 9-11 knots, the final 2 races of the Portmore Insurance Spring Series got underway. All classes had windward-leeward courses along the mainland shore and with a spring flood tide fortune smiled on those who hugged the shore.
In IRC Class 1, the short keel of the Cork 1720 enabled Rick Otten's J.A.R. to post a second in the first race while Zarafa, No Chance and Jitterbug carried on with their usual battle for the top place. With a 4th and a 2nd, Zarafa secured the top place overall with No Chance 2nd, and Jitterbug 3rd with only 3 points separating the top 4 boats!
In the RS Elite class Kiss noted down the wrong 1st course and then rounding a leeward mark had to watch the rest of the fleet sail straight past it en route to the correct one! Shortly afterwards the new leader, Easy Does It, followed by Flying A missed the correct gate, leaving Freebie in a commanding lead. When Freebie dropped their kite into the tide at the last mark and allowed Kiss back through it seemed the Gods truly were smiling on team Kiss in this series.
Meanwhile E'Tu had started the day just a point ahead of Wombat, in second and third overall - but E'Tu threw away their chances of holding that result when they followed Kiss around the first wrong mark!
Crackerjack resumed her dominance of the Folkboat fleet and set a blistering pace to win both races. The lower places were keenly contested and there was plenty of close racing between Tak, FlutterBy, Madeline and Padfoot. Overall Tak won the series followed by FlutterBy and Padfoot.
Full results are on the club website.