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Wildwind Wednesdays at Lymington Town Sailing Club - Race 9

by Tony Stickland 12 Jun 2018 12:22 BST 6 June 2018
ymington Town SC Wildwind Wednesday race 9 © Alastair Beeton

For Race 9 of LTSC's Wildwind Holidays Wednesday Early Points Series the big question for the Race Officer was how long would the SW sea breeze hold before the NE gradient wind started to reassert itself?

For the competitors in the Fast (Class 1) and Medium (Classes 2 and 3) Fleets, setting off in lovely conditions of sunshine and a SW Force 3, the issue was whether to head for Pylewell Inner via the Lake or the Solent. All but one of the 51 competitors got away cleanly, only the Merlin of Rob and Jan Martin returning after a somewhat premature start.

It was amongst the Medium fleet that the option of the Lake route appeared generally attractive, although the few boats going via the Solent found more wind to compensate for the slightly longer distance. As the wind slowly started to drop, the building ebb tide needed to be played to advantage, particularly on the second, smaller lap, leading to a few changes of position in Medium and Slow fleets.

Unsurprisingly the Levell/Homewood trimaran took clear line honours in the Fast fleet, with Toby Collyer's RS700 and Nigel Walbank's Musto Skiff keeping ahead of the National 18 Ultra; in Class 2 the Cooper/Wigley Merlin Rocket crossed the line first, followed by 4 boats with only 30s between them - Russell/Weger in their Tasar and then the 3 Merlins of the Brookes, Herbert /Thorne, and Henderson/Markham. Class 3 saw Stuart Watson's Hadron clearly ahead on the water, followed by Simon Maguire's Aero 9 and Robby Boyd's Laser, whilst in Class 4 Annie Pike's Gull finished ahead of the tightly spaced group of Scows with Pete Wills second over the line.

The wind held for everybody to complete the course, with 49 finishers and 2 retirements. The final results were Class 1 - Toby Collyer (RS700), the Vines (National 18), Levell/Homewood (Tri 18); Class 2 - Russell/Weger (Tasar), Cooper/Wigley (Merlin Rocket), the Georges (420); Class 3 - Stuart Watson (Hadron), Robby Boyd (Laser), Clive Taylor (Laser); Class 4 - Pete Wills (Lym Scow), Sylvia Pepin (Lym Scow), Annie Pile (Gull).

Full series results can be found here.

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