Lymington XOD fleet Saturday Series Race 16

XL wins race 16 of the Lymington XOD Wednesday Series © RLymYC

Snakes and Ladders!

With a shifty southerly wind combined with strong tides, Chris Baldwick set a course with windward / leeward legs with windward marks off of Yarmouth and a leeward mark D, just south of the starting platform. After a clean start the fleet were split over which was the fastest way to get to the first windward mark, 4, with half heading out into the Solent, facing stronger tide, and half taking a route up the mainland shore towards Oxey lake. In the end the biggest gainer was Richard Field in X92, Persephone, who decided to abandon the group heading out into the Solent, crossing behind all of them and then joing the mainland group before tacking off towards the Island and eventually rounding the first mark some 200m ahead of the next boat!

The race continued in a similar pattern with the additional complexity of a tide change coming into play on the second beat which some of the leading boats totally misjudged causing them to over-stand the mark significantly and allowing the chasing pack through compressing the fleet. Unfortunately the wind switched off for the last run back to the finish, but this did allow for some place changes as boats at the back of the fleet picked up the breeze first. However, Rory Paton in X48 XL who had held 2nd place for most of the race, was able to stay ahead of the pack and overtook Persephone, who along with a couple of others chose to run on port gybe for too long, and with a strong ebb now flowing took them well west of the rum line.

Race 16 Results: (top five)

1st X48 XL, Rory Paton
2nd X92 Persephone, Richard Field
3rd X53 Quest, James McGill
4th X140 Lucrezia, Ado Jardine
5th X170 Oyster, Fenella Lees

Series results can be found here.