Moore Blatch & Station Financial Lymington Thursday Night Series - Day 7
by John Corden 20 Jun 2016 11:10 BST
16 June 2016
Dark clouds overland during Moore Blatch & Station Financial Lymington Thursday Night Series race 7 © Simon Shaw
With a rapidly dropping north-westerly wind and a flood tide the LAH 2 Class was sensibly set a short course commencing with a fetch to Scott Bailey, a spinnaker reach to Berthon, a beat to Sanders Sails and then back through the gate for another, slightly shorter, round.
The strong adverse tide caused some boats got caught well behind the line at the start and opinions were divided as to whether the best plan was to sail low and fast down the rhumb line or to stay high, keeping out of the tide and hedging against a backing shift. In the end it was much of a muchness with Kit Off (Rick Otten) rounding the windward mark first.
Unaccountably, the usually impeccably sailed White Mischief (Andy Hind) elected to hoist the spinnaker on starboard gybe and headed off in completely the wrong direction before gybing back. Not that it seemed to do them much harm as they were well up at Berthon.
The ensuing leg to Sanders Sails confused many. It's not a mark often used by cruiser-racers. Some didn't seem to know where it was and sailed much too high, then having to bear away into the tide. This undoubtedly cost them any chance of landing up in the chocolates. Others, towards the back of the fleet, notably Kipper (John Corden), realising what was happening and stayed low, making up considerable time as the fleet bunched up.
By this time the wind had shifted much more northerly and boats were able to carry their spinnakers through the gate and on to movable mark N, which necessitated a close-reach to reach spinnaker gybe. Relatively simple for boats rigged with asymmetric spinnakers but few in Class LAH2 are, so there were some amusing shenanigans as crews wrestled with their spinnaker poles.
Once round most realised that they couldn't carry spinnakers to Berthon, although a few bravely hung on with South Haze (Charlie Roberts) and Kipper having a real old ding dong before South Haze surged ahead and Kipper opened another beer.
With the course shortened at Berthon, Kipper, benefiting from a low handicap, were astonished to learn that they'd won, with Kit Off second and Ok Yah (Robert Young) third.
Full results at rlymyc.org.uk/OnTheWater/Racing/Race_Results.aspx