XOD Wednesday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 4
by John Olliff-Cooper 24 May 2019 10:19 BST
22 May 2019
The Wednesday afternoon XOD race was sailed in the most beautiful weather with a 10/11 knot breeze. In such sublime conditions it was unsurprising that an impressive fleet of twenty starters came to the line. The tide had just turned to the west, and was running quite strongly.
Chris Baldwick set an interesting course, with a very rare finish at the Yacht Club, which was a great treat for the fleet: racing up the river adds interest, and sometimes deep frustration too, with shifty winds playing dirty tricks on sailors.
Rory Paton in X48 made a perfect start and got well away from the fleet in our beat to Mark B Pennington, and kept his position for the rest of the race. The next led to Inner Pylewell mark, saw a spinnaker run against the tide. Most of the fleet elected to try to avoid the tide, and so went inshore; but those who took a more direct course managed to stay with the fleet.
When the fleet bunched up near the buoy those who managed to keep clean wind during the shemozzle at the buoy, got away from the fleet. Rory Paton led, Chris Torrens in X5 was second followed by Jon Clark in X78 in third and Robin Balme in X117 fourth.
The leading boats kept their places in the beat back to D Outer Distance mark and then to Sanders Sails mark, and home.
Results:
1st X48
2nd X5
3rd X48
4th X117
Full series results can be found here.