XOD Long Race West at Royal Lymington Yacht Club
by Roy Froud 23 Sep 2014 12:10 BST
20 September 2014
Unfortunately, as had been predicted for some days, the weather forecast for very light variable wind and murky, misty conditions proved very accurate for the annual Class Long Race West out into Christchurch Bay.
Using the last of the neap ebb tide and a 2 knot North East fickle wind the fleet set off with spinnakers outwards into the stronger tide and the Hurst channel. The leaders at this early stage were X178 Beatrix, William Norris, X119 Lone Star, Stuart Jardine and X48 XL, Rory Paton. However, by the time the fleet entered Hurst Narrows everyone was spread very evenly across the narrow entrance in search of the best tidal advantage. Here X42 Julia, Stephen Whiteman and X140 Lucrezia, Ado Jardine, chose the north side along of the narrows along the shingle beach and gaining a considerable advantage. However, they very soon threw this away through poor navigation as Julia had no charts and Lucrezia's were well out of date, so that they missed the intended Elbow Bouy and had to fight their way back up tide losing all their advantage!
In the meantime X32 Claire de Lune, Max Crowe took the lead for a short time but ventured too close to the Island shore and lost the tidal advantage allowing Lone Star who despite old charts had the fortune of remembering some binoculars and was able to read the "Elbow" name on the bouy, to round the mark first with a good lead and set off for the North Channel followed then by Beatrix. Unfortunately these two then sailed into a big hole in the wind letting through X117, X-Ray, Robin Balme, and X32 Ibex, Paul Woodman & Oliver James as well as Lucrezia. The wind then filled in again from the NE and the positions held until the finish. Only one other boat was able to follow Lone Star; Claire de Lune who managed to round the NE Channel buoy some 18 minutes later. Everyone else was forced to retire from this rather ambitious long race in very unfavourable conditions with only 5 finishers.
Overall Results: (top five)
1st X-Ray, Robin Balme
2nd Ibex, Paul Woodman & Oliver James
3rd Lucrezia, Ado Jardine
4th Lone Star, Stuart Jardine
5th Claire de Lune, Max Crowe