XOD class at Itchenor Keelboat Week - Overall

Itchenor Keelboat Week © Kirsty Bang

The 23 boats at Itchenor Keelboat Week had a week of varied conditions from light winds, sea mist on one day making navigation around the harbour tricky, gradually increasing to 20+ knots on Thursday and then back to 15 knots on Friday.

Most of the racing was held an hour either side of high tide giving a huge expanse of water for the race team to choose courses over.

With the wind generally in the same direction as the flood tide, choosing the correct way to go up the beats often determined the race results throughout the fleet.

Friday 28 June saw the 23 boat XOD fleet gather for the deciding race of the 5 race regatta.

Race Officer David MacGregor set the fleet the challenge of a long beat up the harbour to SW Pilsey from a start near Rookwood. At the pin end X91 John Tremlett and team took a small lead at the gun from X50 Roger Yeoman and team as the fleet split to the left and right sides of the beat. At the first mark it was clear that those who had gone to the left along the East Head shore held the lead as the fleet headed downwind returning for one more beat to the west and a long run back to the finish.

After a great race in perfect but very shifty conditions X91 had the race win from X50 and with it X91 took the week win as well, with 4 first places and a 6th discarded.

In third place on the day was X26 Colin McKinnon and team who took fourth place overall for the week. Coming home in fifth place after a grounding on East Head was X166 Ben McGrane and team for whom this place was enough to see them in 3rd overall. Between these two came X188 David Palmer and team who ended the week in 5th overall.

And so another Keelboat week ended with a prize-giving buoyed up by some fizz from the week's sponsors Royal Westmoreland (Barbados).

Overall Results: