Lymington Town Sailing Club Solent Circuit - Day 3
by South Coast Journalism 26 Oct 2016 12:58 BST
23 October 2016
Race 3 of the Lymington Town Sailing Club's Solent Circuit started in perfect conditions. The morning sunshine with a 15 knot north easterly breeze allowed all classes to start with a beat along the Hampshire shore.
The IRC fleet was first away and produced the most contested start with Jelly Baby having to dive back through the approaching fleet to clear the line.
The second start was the Lymington adjusted handicap fleet. Bob Fisher and Barry Dunning's 120 year old gaffer Rosenn gave the fleet a master class in starting with a port tack flyer that cleared all the faster more modern boats.
The J80s and Folkboats were a little more conservative with many well shy of the start line in the ebbing tide.
The wind built steadily to produce gusts of 27 knots giving exhilarating sailing for all. The tide turned to give a short steep sea making the downwind legs fast but upwind extremely wet.
The IRC fleet had a long run down the Solent to a turning mark well west of the river and a beat back up to two marks by the committee boat to complete their lap.
Unfortunately there was some misunderstanding of how to round the final mark and this race is subject to protest.
There were no problems for the other classes. In the Lymington Adjusted Handicap, the winner on the corrected times was Andrew Pearson and Spike, Robert Young finished second on OK Yah and crossing the line to take third place was John Turner and Dynamic, squeezing Strega out of the top 3.
For the first time there was some separation in the J80 fleet. Chris Neve on No Regrets made no mistakes in the increasing breeze and won by a good margin, second place going to Andrew Hurst on Fiducial, while Ray Mitchell was third on Checkmate, beating Jitterbug to the final podium spot.
As in the previous weeks, there was nothing to separate the Folkboat fleet, the top 5 being led by Simon Flack and Stralende. By the end of the first lap, Chris Hills on Padfoot had a narrow lead, Stralende right on his stern as they went across the line.
The series is set to continue with week four next Sunday. If you'd like to get involved in the series, please contact LTSC directly.