Moore Blatch Royal Lymington YC Thursday Night Late Series - Day 1

The combination of a perfect summer's day and a decent breeze for the first time in weeks brought out a big fleet for the first race of the Late Series. The wind was SW, 17-20 knots and fairly steady which encouraged the Race Officer to set challenging courses for the whole fleet. The first beat took the fleet up towards Hurst Castle, helped by a strong ebb tide. IRC Class 1 rounded Echopilot, then with varying degrees of success hoisted spinnakers on the way to Black Rock. In IRC Class 2 the boats hoisted spinnakers for a broad reach back to Lymington Bank, where the gybe was testing after so many evenings of gentle breezes. IRC Class 1 rounded Bridgefords with Class 2 rounding a laid mark ready to go back on the wind through the gate to another temporary mark near Pennington. Most boats then gybed inshore to avoid the tide. The course required both classes to pass Yacht Haven mark, south of the Platform, to port and then to turn back inshore to Folkboats UK before a final beat to the finish. At least one competitor in Class 2, hugging the shore to avoid the current, failed to make this dogleg out into the Solent and later retired. In Class 1, Zhik, the VX One owned by Chris Turner was able to fly round the course and finished almost 12 minutes ahead of second placed Jelly Baby, with Zarafa third.

First on the water and second on corrected time in Class 2 was the J80 Purple Haze, sailed by Shane Armitage. Second across the line and first on corrected time was Kit Off, Jon Boyd's Corby 25. Colleen, the J30 of Allan Hill was third.

The Class 3 Lymington Handicap fleet made a few navigational errors in the breezy conditions. After a beat to Pennington Pathogem and Unity were first to reach the windward mark off Folkboats UK only to round it the wrong way. Sailing back to correct their error let Breeze, Tokoloshe and Nauti Lady through only for Breeze to head for an unscheduled mark on the next downwind leg. Pathogem still managed to be first to finish but on handicap, Tokoloshe won with Breeze second, Unity third and Pathogem fourth.

Results can be found at rlymyc.org.uk/Sailing/Racing/Race_Results.aspx