Moore Blatch Royal Lymington YC Thursday Night Late Series - Day 3

The tide was the big factor on Thursday evening, a sluicing spring ebb which dictated tactics on the beat into the light E-ENE breeze on another glorious evening.

In Class 3 Lymington Handicap the heavier cruisers for once got off to the better start beating into a strong ebb tide with Petit Moineau, Unity and Solo leading the way in glorious weather. However the lighter day boats soon made up ground tacking closer in on the Pylewell shore where the cruisers dared not go on the falling tide as Breeze, Pallas Athene and Pathogem joined Solo to lead round the windward mark. After an uneventful spinnaker run down to the leeward mark off Pennington it was back to another long inshore beat into the tide up to the finish off Pylewell as the light north-easterly wind persisted. Line honours went to Solo with Pallas Athene, Breeze and Unity following but on handicap, Pallas Athene was declared the winner with Unity second and Breeze third.

In IRC Class 2 most boats chose to start about halfway along the line, heading inshore towards Pylewell and then short-tacking up the muddy shore. A few groundings penalised those who pushed things too far. Then it was out into the current to round the first mark Zwerver. Shane Armitage's Purple Haze (J80) lead the fleet around the mark with a knot of boats close behind. Colleen, Allan Hill's J30 pulled up to second on the run and held that place up the second beat and down to the finish, crossing just 57 seconds behind Purple Haze. Third across the line was Nick Kirkman's J80 Jane, 72 seconds behind Colleen. Coming up the river after the race the crew's hopes were high on Colleen but it was not to be their night. Once again Roddy Steel's Stren returned the best corrected time by almost three minutes. Colleen had to be content with second place and Purple Haze came third. It had been such a perfect evening to be out racing that everyone was happy.

In IRC Class 1 a lot of boats started further out in the tide to take advantage of the line bias as they headed east against the tide. This proved a good tactic as they crossed those inshore and could control the others. Boo, a new J109 to the fleet led followed by Boomerang and Edith, with it taking a lot of tacks to get to Zwerver. There then followed a run to Paul Jackson with the fleet gybing into Yacht Haven buoy, Boo retired at this stage to leave Boomerang and Edith to fight it out on another lengthy beat back to Zwerver. Boomerang got to Yacht Haven first where the race was shortened but Edith hung on to claim first on handicap, followed by Boomerang and Islay.

Results can be found at rlymyc.org.uk/Sailing/Racing/Race_Results.aspx