Saturday XOD Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 20
by John Olliff-Cooper 22 Sep 2017 13:45 BST
16 September 2017
The wind forecast was excellent for powerboaters, but pretty disheartening for sailors: 3-6 knots from the north. Nevertheless, a dozen XODs assembled, perhaps more in hope than expectation of a race.
Miraculously, enough wind arrived to get the fleet out of the river, and race officer John Trundle treated us to a very sensible inshore course east of the starting box (Inner Pylewell, Z mark near the river mouth, Outer Distance, THEN line - x 2). What the race officer couldn't anticipate was that the wind would vary so much in direction – so runs became beats, and beats became anything other than beats. Ah those fickle wind gods!
The top 3 boats at the windward mark took the inshore route where there was more wind but less favourable tide. X164 Diana (Ian Burr) led X178 Beatrix (William Norris) round Inner Pylewell, but nifty spinnaker work and shifting wind shot X72 Venus (Roy Froud) into a good lead onto the spinnaker reach that became a fetch with spinnakers being dropped. Coming from near the back of the fleet, X32 Ibex (Paul Woodman) found a really good lane of wind, and she wafted through to contend for the lead.
Venus led on the second leg to mark D but increasing breeze from behind compressed the fleet and a wind shift just before the mark led to confusion over whether to gybe and fly spinnakers or go to a two sail tight reach. Venus dropped her spinnaker: that proved to be costly as she was overtaken by Ibex and Diana who continued to fly theirs.
With the wind having shifted to the west the leg to mark Z became a beat and there was the opportunity for place changes with Venus showing good speed to close on Diana and with X87 Excalibur (John Olliff-Cooper) and N1 Xoanon also closing on boats ahead.
Moral victory of the day might reasonably be claimed for Alex Schlegel, a visiting yachtsman from Chesapeake Bay in the USA, who was sailing X87 Excalibur (owned by John Olliff-Cooper and Dunlop Stewart). Alex started very conservatively, but took Excalibur from the back of the fleet to a brilliant 4th place.
Race 20 Results: (top four)
1st X32 Ibex (Paul Woodman and Oliver James)
2nd X164 Diana (Ian Burr)
3rd X72 Venus (Roy and Nik Froud and Henry Collison)
4th X87 Excalibur (John Olliff-Cooper and Dunlop Stewart)
Full RLymYC XOD Series results can be found here.