XOD Wednesday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 9
by John Olliff-Cooper 23 Jun 2018 18:17 BST
20 June 2018
We must all congratulate our race team under the management of James Hoare, who is a Folkboat owner. What looked to be a benign windward/leeward follow-the-leader race along the Lymington shore turned out to be very tricky, as a heavy price was paid for the smallest of mistakes.
The top four boats constantly changed places, which resulted in a very close finish. The race was finally won by X48 (XL) helmed by Eric Williams by just 2 seconds from Jo Hutchinson in X183 (Condor). Max Crowe in X33 (Claire de Lune) was third, and Stuart Jardine in X119 (Lone Star) finished 4th. Holding their position in 5th was David Da Cunha in X161 (Mayday).
Further back in 9th place, and by no means last, was a very welcome guest boat from Yarmouth X77 (Sunshine) with its wheelchair owner/helm, Brian Harding. Brian steered using a device off the centre post rather than a standard tiller: an outstanding effort on quite a breezy day.
Full results can be found here.