Royal Lymington Yacht Club Nordic Folkboats Saturday Series Race 11

Lymington Nordic Folkboats Saturday Series race 11 © RLymYC

After quite a long lay-off following races cancelled in recent weeks, owing too much or too little wind, eight Nordic Folkboats turned out for Saturday Series 11.

Pre-start the wind was benign but built before the start. The tide was still falling and the wind was generally South Westerly 15 - 20 knots with a lumpy sea. During the race the wind was up and down as local weather systems came through.

The race officer laid a good course using a beat with the tide to the west towards Hurst followed by a spinnaker run back to the leeward mark with most boats sailing along the mainland shore to minimise the affect of the adverse tide and then making a dash to mark H in the middle of the Solent. At this stage there was evidence of rustiness as not all spinnaker handling was that clean! The fleet was led by Samphire followed by Crackerjack and Tak.

At the end of the second beat back westward, there were place changes as the tide was turning and at mark C, Samphire was still in the lead closely followed by Crackerjack and Bonnie who had moved up in the strengthening wind.

There were several place changes on the spinnaker run back to the second leeward mark the boats out right benefitting, Bonnie had unfortunately lost a spinnaker sheet at the previous drop and had to rig a mooring line as a substitute, the delay costing her several places on the water.

Luffing matches ensued on the reach inshore to the third leeward mark and the final beat to the platform finish saw more place changes as boats tacked inshore to avoid the newly flooding tide.

The finishing order was Crackerjack, Tak, Samphire and Lady Linda in fourth. Despite the feast and famine tactics towards the finish the entire fleet was separated by only 3 minutes, after nearly 2 hours of racing.

Series results so far can be found here.