XOD Wednesday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 7
by John Olliff-Cooper 9 Jun 2018 14:20 BST
6 June 2018
Sunshine and a gentle breeze from the North-east tempted nineteen boats to the start-line for Wednesday racing. However, the breeze veered 90 degrees during the starting procedure so the line was re-laid and a course set across to mark 4 just off the Island.
Fastest across were boats from the port end of the line with slightly more breeze and rolling over the boats to leeward as the leg became a fetch with tide pushing boats up to windward. Spinnakers were eventually deployed as the breeze fell to prevent being swept past the mark. At this point the entertainment was provided by the ever agile Stuart Paton shinning up the mast of XL to retrieve a wayward spinnaker halyard!
Clair de Lune rounded first followed by Venus and Zest to try to cross the channel back to mark E before the wind died completely. The fleet spread widely in search of that elusive puff, Stephen Whiteman's X42 Julia slipped along nicely electing to delay the spinnaker and finding better airflow whilst the rest of us looked forlornly at our lifeless kites!
The breeze returned just as Clair de Lune approached E (Folkboats UK) whilst Venus had made progress further to the mainland shore. Sadly for her, this was a sea breeze arriving very late in the day so the final leg home became close-hauled allowing Clair de Lune to be windward boat and first to get the new breeze - apparently they saw it coming!
Our thanks go to the race officer John Whyte and his team; James Hoare, Derek Tilley and Puddy Draycott, for managing to give us a race.
Race 8 Results: (top four)
1st Claire de Lune (Max Crowe with Ollie Tait and Seb Ayris)
2nd Venus (Nick Froud with Giles Lloyd-Williams and Henry Collison)
3rd Julia (Stephen Whiteman and Chris Cottrel)
4th Zest (Phil and Jo Brewer)
Full results can be found here.