XOD Wednesday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 5

Race officer Chris Knox set a good course on this wet, windy and murky afternoon. Despite the unappealing conditions, there were 15 starters for the race, and 8 managed to finish, even though the wind was gusting up to 29 knots. Gear was well tested, as was the resolve of competitors.

The course was upwind against the tide to V a new buoy near B (Pennington) then downwind to E (Pylwell) then a beat back to B, a spinnaker run down to S (Sanders Sails) and a final beat to the Platform finish. The neap tide was east-going throughout the race, meaning we had wind with the tide, and thus not a very rough sea state.

The two leading boats opted to stay out in the tide to mark V, where the positions were X33 (IBEX) X32 (Claire de Lune) and X48 (XL). There was a spinnaker run with the tide with positions unchanged. The beat back to B weeded-out XL whose forestay broke. The final spinnaker run back to S was dead downwind and complicated by the Wightlink Ferry, meaning X-ray had to make an extra jibe.

Positions remained unchanged to the finish, at the Platform.

Race 5 Results: (top four)

1st Ibex (Paul Woodman)
2nd Claire de Lune (Max Crowe)
3rd Madcap (Chris Torrens)
4th X-ray (Robin Balme)

Full series results can be found here.