Lymington Town Sailing Club Solent Circuit 2024

Supported by Luxury Property Projects

If you race in the Western Solent, you would have heard of or taken part in the Solent Circuit hosted by Lymington Town Sailing Club. It is a staple fixture in the racing season and caps off the keelboat season bar the Needle relief race in December.

At the helm of this extremely well-run series is Nick Hopgood, who for 15 years has assisted or led the race team to deliver excellent racing. The racing is often in challenging conditions, as this is the time of year that the autumn lows rumble across the Atlantic usually making for racing at the top of the wind range for the fleet of hardy racers that aren't yet ready to give up racing for the year.

This year was no exception, Nick and team were stretched to the limit, with either no wind or 50 knots the series was limited only two weekends where the weather gods played ball.

There was an excellent turn out across the series with 40 boats over four classes all sponsored by Luxury Property Projects. In the end five races out of six were sailed in IRC Class and Sportsboats with four sailed in YTC and Folk boats.

In Class 1 it was team Boomerang that dominated, they are a regular and packed with talent. Duking it out in second and third were Gin Tonic and Jelly Baby both finishing on 11 points net but Gin Tonic taking second overall on countback. Juno (Michael Carrington) took the Endeavour trophy for the highest scored boat that took part in all races.

1st Boomerang - Team Boomerang - 5 points
2nd Gin Tonic - Andy Roberts - 12.0 points
3rd Jelly Baby - William Newton - 12.0 points

In YTC there was some tight racing between White Mischief and Colleen, again these two teams have been doing the Solent Circuit for many seasons and so there is stiff rivalry on the course between them. In the end it was decided over a single race as their scores were identical in all but race 3. Andy Hind in White Mischief prevailed this year.

1st White Mischief - Andy Hind - 6.0 points
2nd Colleen - Alan Hill - 8.0 points
3rd Strega - Matt Perkins - 14.7 points

In the Sportsboats, again the racing was tight, but it was the RS 21 Dark & Stormy who dominated the fleet with three bullets and a second to close out the class. Traffic jam J80 kept them honest with Escape J70 also pushing hard close behind.

1st Dark & Stormy - Liam & Keith Willis - 5.0 points
2nd Traffic Jam - Toby Collyer - 8.0 points
3rd Escape - Giles Chipperfield - 13.0 points

Folkboats, probably the premier class of the regatta with excellent one design racing. I would say that as I'm a Folkboat sailor...

We had some excellent racing too. It was tight at times but overall team Gybe n' kept it with three bullets and a second. Despite the results, there were lots of lead changes and in particularly in the last race of the series Nick Ingram of Otter sailed an outstanding first two legs only to be overhauled in the second beat by Gybe n' with their natural ballast. (More pies please.)

1st Gybe n' - Cy Grisley & Simon Evans - 5.0 points
2nd Mistral - Claire & Julian Sowry - 8.0 points
3rd Jen - John Cooper - 20.0 points

The overall winner of the Solent Circuit Series also went to Gybe n'. Simon Even, of Gybe n' and Luxury Property projects thanked the Club for hosting another excellent regatta.

Rumour has it that this is Nick Hopwood's last year as Principal Race Officer for the Solent Circuit. We hope he will reconsider but if it is I would like to thank him for all his hard work and dedication over the years. His excellent pragmatic approach to getting races in is a real skill and on behalf of all the sailors, thank you Nick.

Full results in all fleets at www.sailwave.com/results/LTSC/2024_SolentCircuit.htm

Lymington Town Sailing Club Solent Circuit 2024 volunteers - photo © Suzie Hawkins