Nordic Folkboat Saturday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Day 9
by Julian, Claire & Anthony Sowry 16 Jul 2018 11:06 BST
14 July 2018
A good fleet of twelve Nordic Folkboats came to the start for the ninth Saturday series race.
The Folkboat fleet sailed east towards the Committee boat, anchored near the shore at Tanners off Sowley in glorious hot sunshine, and a solid 15 knot South Westerly breeze, but this took a while due to a well-established strong spring ebb tide. Most would agree excellent conditions! A good long line was set with the fleet spread out along it and all cleanly away.
Padfoot opted to start near the Committee Boat & Mistral near the pin. Padfoot overstood the first Mark, Yachthaven, but rounded after a short beat just ahead of Mistral, followed by The Otter, Tak & Lady Linda, Samphire and the rest of the fleet. A further 3 rather quick short beats followed to Yachthaven with the tide, and runs back against it to Tanners. However, in the last run, the FB Fleet became enmeshed with the back markers of the large XOD fleet racing the same course and making the leeward mark rounding Tanners rather challenging with Tak having to perform penalty turns and Mistral suffered 'operating issues!
The fleet then headed back up wind, through the gate and off to the river buoy Z and back to Folkboat buoy and the finish. Padfoot finished clear ahead in 1st place from The Otter & Lady Linda followed by Mistral, Tak and Samphire at the Finish. Clearly some found it a little too much and 3 retired. This was however pretty much classic Nordic racing weather.
Series results can be found here.