Photos: Richard Russell & Cassie Pollack
Being close to the nationals and with a slightly ropey forecast it wasn’t any surprise to see a slightly depleted fleet turn up to Lymington Town Sailing Club for the penultimate circuit event of the year, but the quality of racing made up for any lack of quantity. The fleet is on a bit of a roll as far as friendly clubs go this year with some great events at Castle Cove, Beer and Eastbourne in particular. Lymington Town added themselves to this list with a great welcome – where else could you get entry, food for two and accom within stumbling distance of the bar for less than 60 quid? Combined with the 400’s and D1’s it made for a great event.
Saturday was a bit of a mixed bag with the offshore breeze coming through with some huge shifts, which together with some strong cross tide made picking the laylines tricky. Home boat Luke and Emma McEwan were heard telling everyone that they didn’t normally sail where we were, but were clearly getting things right with a 2,5,1 to lead overnight by a point from Tom Halhead / Stu Jagger with Nick Charles and Christian Humphrey a couple of points back in third. Ominously lurking a bit further back were newly crowned National Champions James Date / Toby Wincer with a 1,8,6 and Laurie Fitzjohn-Sykes and James Hughes counting a 5,1,5.
Saturday night saw the fleet stuffing themselves full of pasta, beer and birthday cake with the entertainment provided by a great band and James Date trying to fit a double lilo into a one man tent.
Sunday dawned as forecast with no real wind and supposedly not much on the way. Laurie and James H decided to trust windguru and headed off, they should have trusted the RO who was busily telling everyone that the token breeze out in the Solent was the sign of bigger things to come. There were a few dubious looks but the fleet set out on time into a 5-6 knot south westerly. By the time the first race was away there was a solid 10 knots and this continued to build throughout the day with the last race in particular being proper twin wiring up and downwind. Luke and Emma dominated the day with 3 bullets showing great pace in all directions. James and Toby put a consistent day together with a 3,2,3 to take 2nd on a tie break from Tom and Stu with Nick and Christian in 4th and Richard and Tom Kennedy showing some real pace at times counting a 2,3 and ending up 5th.
So thanks go to LTSC and in particular the race officer who really showed how to run a multi-fleet event efficiently, particularly given the testing conditions on the first day. There’s still lots of racing left to go this year with the final circuit event at Stokes Bay at the end of the month, with the Inlands following at Datchet and combined RS End of Season champs, also at Datchet.
Tom Halhead
