XOD Wednesday Series at Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Race 17
by Eric Williams 2 Sep 14:16 BST
28 August 2019
The race officer set a perfect course for the conditions, which were shifty south south west 14 knots with the last of the ebb tide turning during the race.
Diana, Ian Burr, had a great start as did Venus, Nick Froud, and those two rounded Hurst with a good lead from Rory Paton in XL, Stuart Jardine in Lone Star and Eric Williams in Mersa.
The two leading boats gybed offshore and hit the west-going tide, whilst XL, Lone Star and Zest, Philip Brewer, sailed for the shore. Mersa took a direct course with a very small amount of adverse tide but more breeze and a shorter route, and it was Mersa that rounded the leeward mark first followed by Lone Star and XL. Although the boats had all taken very different courses, most rounded H Jacksons and then G Tanners in close formation.
The next leg was a beat to the platform line and then to C Colten. This beat was interesting and indeed challenging because of tide and wind changes. Mersa led Lone Star inshore on a high port tack, out of the strengthening tide however before they reached the platform the wind shifted fifteen degrees to the left bringing the following pack to the front of the fleet. XL took the lead followed by Mersa, Venus, Zest and Lone Star. Vexilla, Robin Balme, had also joined the leading group, along with Gleam, James Meaning (a very welcome visitor from Yarmouth).
XL was a little kind in not covering Zest and once again Philip Brewer powered through to take the lead at Colten, which he retained on the last two legs of the course. XL worked very hard though losing by only 10 seconds. Mersa and Venus had a close race to the finish with Venus winning the battle behind Rory Paton. It was very good to see Robin Balme getting Vexilla going so fast and finishing 5th. Vexilla is on loan to Robin whilst his lovely boat Xray is being repaired after a collision earlier in the season.
So it's well done again to Zest team on winning their 4th Wednesday in a row; but the real winner of the day was the race officer for setting the perfect course.
Full series results can be found here.