XOD Wednesday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 3
by John Olliff-Cooper 17 May 12:14 BST
15 May 2019
Sparkling conditions with a gentle and slightly shifty south easterly breeze greeted 21 Lymington XODs for their Wednesday race.
Principle Race Officer Malcolm McKeag and his team aboard the good committee ship Chinook had their work cut out to hold back an eager fleet, intent on using the last of the flood tide. Sadly the fleet were too eager on the first attempt and a general recall resulted.
On the second start the fleet got away cleanly with the notable exception of Chris Torrens' X5 crewed by David Bedford and Mat Reid, who were still very (too) keen. The early leaders Eric Williams' Mersa and Max Crowes' Claire de Lune battled with Rory Paton's XL hard for the left hand side of the long beat to H.
They were outdone by Robert Young's brilliantly sailed Red Coral from the middle, with Phil and Jo Brewer's Zest and an amazing recovery by Madcap from the far right course in mid-Solent.
The rest of the course saw many place changes with the turning tide and wind-shifts providing their usual game of three-dimensional chess, but in the end the podium places were as they were at the top mark. XL managed to get through to fourth ahead of Stuart Jardine's Lone Star in fifth.
This was wonderful yacht racing.
Results:
1st X57 Red Coral, Robert Young
2nd X9 Zest, Phil and Jo Brewer
3rd X5 Madcap, Chris Torrens
4th X48 XL, Rory Paton
5th X119 Lone Star, Stuart Jardine
Full series results can be found here.