Royal Lymington Yacht Club Spring Series - Day1

The weather gods smiled on the RLymYC on Sunday for the first two races of their Spring Series. Flat water and 6 –10 knots, with perfect sunshine (if it was a little chilly at first) greeted the competitors. Race Officer Jenny Wilson, by having the use of 2 committee boats was able to set triangle sausage courses and then a very prompt restart for a windward-leeward second race enabling everyone to get in two good length races and still be finished by lunchtime.

In Class 1 IRC, a very competitive if small fleet had a tussle beating up against the tide to a black moveable with the first boat in Class 2, Bob Baker’s Brightwork starting 5 minutes later, managing to get there before Class 1. Chris and Hannah Neve’s No Chance won Class 1 by 41 seconds from Peter Schofield’s HOD 35 Zarafa. In race 2 the positions were reversed with Zarafa beating No Chance by a much tighter 7 seconds!

In Class 2, Brightwork went on to win the first race by 1.5 minutes on corrected time from Christian Sutherland’s Reach Around and Ray Crouch’s Boomerang. In race 2, Reach Around relished the light airs and won ahead of Boomerang and Brightwork.

In Lymington handicap Class 2, Locust, the Magnum 25 owned by Eric Reynolds and Chalkie White made an emphatic start to the series, scoring 2 firsts ahead of Pat Stable’s two 2nds in Google Eye and Roddy Steel’s two 3rds in Stren.

In the Folkboats it was a similar story for Jeremy Austin on Tak, who also scored a perfect 2 firsts ahead of Padfoot owned by Chris Hills in the first race and Keith Whitelaw’s Good Shepherd in the second.

With almost perfect conditions for tactical Elite racing, Crauford McKeon in Kandoo III stamped his authority with two convincing wins. The battle for 2nd & 3rd was hard fought in both races with many changes in position and some exciting light wind luffing battles. After two disastrous starts Steve Powell in E’Tu fought back to take 2nd in both races, with Simon Cavey in Livez and Jonathan Procter in Wombat each taking a 3rd spot.

Results after 2 races:

Class 1 IRC:
1st Zarafa, Peter Schofield
2nd No Chance, Chris/Hannah Neve
3rd Jibe, Robin Taunt

Class 2 IRC:
1st Reach Around, Christian Sutherland
2nd Brightwork, Bob Baker
3rd Boomerang, Ray Crouch

Lymington Handicap Class 1:
1st Minim III, Oliver Dunne

Lymington Handicap Class 2:
1st Locust, Eric Reynolds/Chalkie White
2nd Google Eye, Pat Stables
3rd Stren, Roddy Steel

Nordic Folkboat:
1st Tak, Jeremy Austin
2nd Padfoot, Chris Hills
3rd Bonnie, Chris Baldwick

RS Elite:
1st Kandoo III, Crauford Mckeon
2nd E’Tu, Steve Powell
3rd Livez, Simon Cavey