Lymington Town Sailing Club Solent Circuit - Race 5
by Robin Milledge 15 Nov 2021 13:39 GMT
14 November 2021
For week 5 of the Lymington Town Sailing Club Solent Circuit for keel boats, competitors were greeted by a light northerly breeze that put a premium on picking the shifts and staying in the wind bands.
All the classes started with a short beat to a windward mark laid inshore and with a starboard rounding then had a close fetch out of the worst of the tide. All the fleets except the J80s then had a run across to the island shore before returning to the mainland shore one or two times.
In IRC 1 the scratch boat, Tim Webb's Swan 45 Luna, made good use of her extra length, particularly on the reaches to get back uptide, to be first boat home by nearly 20 minutes. Once the handicaps were applied she still took the class win by 2 minutes from Bob Baker's J97, Jaywalker and Andy Roberts' J105, Jin Tonic.
In IRC 2 it was another Swan, this time a Classic Swan 36, Harry Hutchinson's Anna Mai, that took the win from Andy Ash-Vies much modified 6-meter, Wildcat IV, and Andy Hind's Hanse291, White Mischief.
Ten Folkboats made the start with the Sowry's Mistral setting the early pace. After the run over to the island shore and subsequent reach back up that shore, the final windward leg back to the committee boat saw Jonathan Proctor's Wombat come home 1st from Ray Mitchell and Charles Darley's Freedom and Mistral back in third.
The Lymington Adjusted Handicap fleet were led home both on the water and on handicap by Mandy and Geoff Sock's Collins Custom 33, Jungle. The First 32s5, Roller Coaster, Denis Bates and Dehler 29, Dynamic, John Turner were the other bottle winners of the day.
In the J80 fleet, 2 races were held. In the first, Toby Colliers Traffic Jam and the Neve's No Regrets swapped the lead several times before No Regrets took the win with Traffic Jam, only just holding off the fast catching up Dark and Stormy, by one second. The Willis' Dark and Stormy then pulled off a classic port hand start from the pin end, to lead the entire of race 2. No Regrets came in second and Traffic Jam third with Andrew Hurst's Fiducial claiming her second 4th place of the day.
Find out more at www.ltsc.co.uk/solent-circuit