Royal Lymington Yacht Club Monday Night Dinghy Series - Day 4
by Hannah Neve 13 May 2014 13:16 BST
12 May 2014
After a blustery day the 56 dinghies lining up for the 4th RLymYC Monday Evening Dinghy race were surprised to find light SW winds and bright sunshine at the start. The race team, led by Ado Jardine, sent the handicap fleets on a good windward/leeward course to the east of the river mouth.
The Slow fleet was a battle of Fevas, with junior legends Ollie Hill and Hattie Rogers pipping Liam Willis and Arran Mills by just seven seconds after almost an hour of racing, despite capsizing.
In the Medium fleet, Pete Barton took his habitual pole position at the leeward end of the start line in his Blaze, giving him the edge he needed to hold off Mark Barwell and Lou Johnson's Merlin Rocket as they tried to surge over him with their spinnaker up. Dan and Sarah Fox also had a great start in their RS200, but it was the other RS200, sailed by Nick and James Eales, which pulled out a commanding lead on the final beat back to the river, taking advantage of a 60 degree windshift to win by over 3 minutes on corrected time. Second was Barton, with Richard Russell and Sylvia Weger relishing the long beats against the tide to take a close third in their Tasar.
The Fast fleet were becalmed at the start. Series leaders Rob and Jan Martin in their RS400 drifted over the line in the slight river current after the weekend's rain and had to turn back, along with Ed Reeves' RS700, while the rest of the fleet sailed away with spinnakers up in a building breeze. Luke and Emma McEwen's RS800 planed away to take line honours and first on corrected time. Andy Ash-Vie tried yet another crew in his new RS400, Christian Sutherland (his third of the series). Together they demonstrated hitherto unseen potential, building up a lead of more than two minutes over the other RS400s by heading inshore to avoid the tide when the big veer came through on the last beat. Nigel King and Steve Reneaux took third ahead of the Martins.
The five Optimists were led by Tom Mitchell, with Jasmine Summers taking second place and Alex Paton in third.
Single handers took the first two places in the Scow fleet. Daffy Duck, 315 sailed by Jane Pitt Pitts was 1st, ahead of Anna, 472, sailed by Eric Williams, in 2nd place, Snow Goose, 303, Barry and Carol Dunning was 3rd. Anna had opened up a commanding lead but went the wrong way for a time on the last beat, allowing Daffy Duck to pull through. Once again the large turnout of 29 Scows were evenly divided between single handers and crewed boats.
Full results are at www.rlymyc.org.uk/Racing/Results/results.shtml