Lymington XOD fleet Wednesday Series Race 7

X Ray wins race 7 of the Lymington XOD Wednesday Series © RLymYC

The race team of Chris Baldwick, David Matcham and Helen Matcham set a magnificent course on a bright sunny Wednesday afternoon with a strong spring ebb tide against 20-25 knots of SW breeze giving boisterous lumpy racing conditions for the 13 XODs who started.

Stuart Jardine in X119, Lone Star, narrowly led David da Cunha in X161, Mayday, Ado Jardine in X140, Lucrezia, Ian Burr in X164, Diana, and Nik Froud in X72, Venus, up the long beat and round the first mark A, to the east of Hurst Castle. There followed a very long run across the strong ebb tide via Sconce to the Island shore. Barry Dunning in X176, Crumpet, took the inshore route and made spectacular gains only to stay inshore too long and lose out to Robin Balme in X117, X Ray, Venus, Lone Star, Diana and Mayday.

Lone Star suffered gear failure on the run and fell back. At the leeward mark H, Paul Jackson, X Ray rounded just ahead of Venus, Lucrezia, Diana and Mayday. There was then a long beat with the tide up to mark B, Dunford, where Venus rounded just ahead of X Ray with Lucrezia and Mayday in close pursuit.

This was followed by another long run against the tide to mark E to the eats of the platform saw further changes in position with X Ray and Mayday taking the direct route whereas Venus, Lucrezia, and Diana sailed further inshore. X Ray made the mark first closely followed by Venus, Lucrezia, Mayday and Diana.

There was a final beat back to the River Line finish. After 2 hours and 20 minutes racing the gap between the first three boats was 19 seconds. Exhilarating stuff and magnificent racing in bracing conditions.

Wednesday Series Race 7 Results:

1st X117 X Ray, Robin Balme 2nd X72 Venus, Nik Froud 3rd X140 Lucrezia, Ado Jardine 4th X161 Mayday, David da Cunha 5th X164 Diana, Ian Burr

Full results can be found here.