Royal Lymington Yacht Club Portmore Insurance Spring Series - Day 1
by Hannah Neve 1 Apr 2014 13:03 BST
30 March 2014
Reach Around, winner of both Portmore Insurance Lymington Spring Series races in Class 2 © Hannah Neve
What a beautiful morning to start the Portmore Insurance Spring Series, with sunshine, warm temperatures and what started off as a light 7-12knt ENE breeze. The Race Officers Roger and Jenny Wilson set a start line just off the entrance to the river for the 5 Classes with Windward-Leeward style courses.
Class 1 got off the line cleanly and went out into the tide heading for 'Bridgefords' buoy. No Chance led around the mark with Jibe just holding off Zarafa: Boomerang did not seem to enjoy the light conditions with a new sail set up but we are sure that will change. No Chance stretched her lead on the 2 lap course to finish 1st on handicap with Zarafa overtaking Jibe on the water and taking 2nd place with Jibe 3rd just 7 seconds ahead of Boomerang.
The second race started in the same conditions but as the tide turned and the wind dropped the fleet struggled to get to the new top mark 'Paul Jackson'; several got the kedges out whilst others tried spinnakers and code 0s. Zarafa played the conditions well to sneak around in front of No Chance. In what had then become a tight reach to 'Yacht Haven' the committee decided to stop the race on the 1st lap as a giant wind hole sat beyond the finish boat.
Race 1 for Class 2 saw some close exchanges between Brightwork, Accomplice and Reach Around on the first beat but the light conditions favoured Reach Around which led around the first mark and was the convincing winner. 2nd in Race 1 was Hephzibah, the High Tension 36 with the Swan 411 Accomplice 3rd on corrected time.
In race 2 the wind died briefly towards the end of the first beat, then swung to the south and picked up again. This divided the fleet Reach Around and Rick Otten's new toy the Corby 25 Kit Off had almost reached the windward mark when the change arrived and were able to get round and take 1st and 2nd places. Meanwhile the rest of the fleet were kedged (or, in one case, hard aground!) on the mainland shore. When the breeze filled in again Accomplice just beat Hephzibah on corrected time to take 3rd place.
LH Class 1 was dominated by the RS Elites who took all the podium places, E'Tu followed by Kiss and Wombat. They only managed one race as did LH2 and the Folkboats.
The sailors came back to a busy bar, filled with those who were entertaining their mothers, for the daily prize giving.
Full results at www.rlymyc.org.uk/Racing/Results/results.shtml