XOD Wednesday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 9
by Roy Froud 25 Jun 2016 11:57 BST
22 June 2016
Race Officer Steve Green set a windward/leeward course for seventeen XODs using a windward mark just off of Pennington Marshes and the first leeward mark, G, Baker Marine, off of Tanners Lane. The wind was reasonably light and with a spring ebb tide it soon became apparent that it was on the downwind legs where the race would be won or lost.
The fleet got away cleanly and with the tide under them arrived at the windward mark within seconds of each other before turning downwind against the tide and becoming heavily bunched with less than 100m between the first and last boat. Once east of the river entrance, five boats decided to split from the pack to head inshore out of the tide with X57 Red Coral, Roy Froud, Giles Lloyd Williams and Kirstie Urwin leading the way and taking the most inshore route, followed by X176 Crumpet, Barry Dunning & Philip Shute, X16 Mystery, John Miller, X170 Oyster David & Fenella Lees and X192 Persephone, Richard Field. The gains from taking this great circular route became obvious after a while as the offshore group started to slip backwards as the tide strengthened beyond the Starting Platform and the wind strength decreased. At leeward mark G all five of the inshore group rounded ahead of the offshore group with their positions largely being determined by how far they had committed to sailing inshore out of the tide. Orders were maintained on the next lap with position for first place become a match race between Red Coral and Crumpet with Red Coral finally taking line honours.
Wednesday Series Race 8 Results: (top five)
1st - X57 Red Coral - Roy Froud, Giles Lloyd Williams and Kirstie Urwin
2nd - X176 Crumpet - Barry Dunning & Philip Shute
3rd - X16 Mystery - John Miller
4th - X170 Oyster - David & Fenella Lees
5th - X192 Persephone - Richard Field