Nordic Folkboat Saturday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Day 5

Bonnie chasing the fleet leaders in Nordic Folkboat Lymington Saturday Series race 5 © Chris Baldwick

The Nordic Folkboat fleet was blessed with near perfect conditions for the fifth race in the R.Lym Saturday Series - a steady 15kt North Easterly, a relatively flat Solent and slack neap tides. The race was sailed largely around the time of low water and finally, with plenty of warm sunshine! Twelve Nordic Folkboats boats came to the start line.

The first leg was a beat to mark G (Tanners) with the fleet making a clean start on starboard and heading into the shallows to avoid the remnants of the ebb tide. Wombat lead the way close tacking to the shore up the beat until being overhauled by Crackerjack just before the mark. Padfoot and Mistral were in hot pursuit and both closed the gap on the two leaders on the second leg, a reach South to H, when both Crackerjack and Wombat initially headed towards the wrong buoy before quickly correcting their error.

There was then a long run to Black Rock near Yarmouth in slack tide followed by a gybe taking the fleet to A (Hurst). Mistral and Bonnie managed to catch the leaders a little by running down the central Solent, thereby getting a bit of assistance from the last of the Ebb Tide. The race order at A continued to be Crackerjack followed by Wombat, with Padfoot, Mistral and Bonnie very close behind.

There was then a longish beat back to G on the early flood tide. Crackerjack continued to set the pace with Padfoot and Mistral managing to squeeze past Wombat.

A short run from G to the finish at the Platform against the tide then followed with Crackerjack holding on for first, Padfoot second and then a closely bunched finish between Mistral, Wombat and Bonnie completing the top places with a bit of a gap back to the rest of the fleet.

Congratulations to the race Committee for setting a very good course.

Series results can be found here.