Royal Lymington Yacht Club XOD Saturday Series - Race 7

22 Lymington XODs appeared on the start line on a glorious Saturday afternoon. Our Race Team lead by Malcolm McKeag had set a cracking course, which promised to take the fleet on a navigationally-challenging Long Race East.

Off the start line the early leaders appeared to be Chris Torrens Madcap, Nick Froud in Venus, James Markby in Expeditious, and Eric Williams in Mersa. They all headed to the far right hand side of course to keep out of the tide. Rory Paton's XL and Phil and Jo Brewer's Zest made enormous gains on the left hand side and by the windward mark No 2 Charles Stanley they had a healthy lead.

The wind made things complicated however as the South Westerly sea breeze fought with a gradient South Easterly on the way to mark H Jackson's. After much kedging (with several boat's anchors failing to hold) the race was sensibly shortened after only two marks. Boats that stayed south heading straight to H won out as they picked up the south easterly first when it triumphed in its battle with the sea breeze. Those that headed inshore out of the building tide after it changed, simply died.

Only ten boats managed to finish within the 20min time limit from the first boat finishing, with Madcap missing out a couple of hundred yards from the line.

Venus managed to snatch the win from Jonathan Clark in Fury with Zest in third XL fourth with Paul Woodman and Oli James' Ibex managing to fend off a fast-charging Stuart Jardine for fifth.

Full race and series results can be found here.