XOD Saturday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 9

Lymington XOD Saturday Series race 9 © Lymington XOD Class

Twenty-two XODs were on the start line last Saturday and Race Officer Ken Hay and team set an excellent and ambitious course in the light westerly wind that initially dropped and then picked up and tracked to the North. First away from the start in almost no wind was X117 X-Ray, Robin Balme followed by X32 Ibex, Paul Woodman & Oliver James, with X48 XL, Rory Paton and X164 Diana, Ian Burr, also getting away well. The first leg was a beat to mark A off Hurst Castle, with all of the fleet heading out into the strongish ebb tide before tacking for the mark, with some boats making gains by tacking on the shifts. First round was Ibex followed by X-Ray and XL.

Spinnakers were then hoisted for the run to Black Rock off of Yarmouth and on this leg the leading five boats pulled away from those behind, particularly from those that left it late to cross the channel. The top 3 remained unchanged as they rounded to sail back to mark A with X176 Crumpet Barry Dunning in fourth and X72 Venus, Nik & Roy Froud (with star guest Kirstie Urwin) in fifth.

With the wind clocking to the North this leg became quite tricky and tacking on the shifts became the order of the day. The leaders became more compressed and Venus managed to overtake Crumpet and then X-Ray enabling her to round in third with XL still in second and Ibex in first. This order was maintained on the close fetch to the finish with opinions being initially divided over whether to fly spinnakers or not.

This was another great tactical race in tricky, shifty conditions and the teams were very appreciative of Ken Hay's clever course!

Race 9 Results: (top five)

1st - X32 Ibex - Paul Woodman & Oliver James
2nd - X48 XL - Rory Paton
3rd - X72 Venus - Nik & Roy Froud
4th - X117 X-Ray - Robin Balme
5th - X176 Crumpet - Barry Dunning