Folkboat Nationals 2024 at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club - Overall

Folkboat Nationals 2024 at Lymington © Coolhat Photography

Warm sunny weather welcomed the Folkboat Association Nationals 2024, this year being held at Royal Lymington Yacht Club as a stand-alone event with five races over the two days featuring 16 boats, each with 3 crew from the sailing clubs across the Solent.

The yachts headed out on Saturday into a spring tide and an easy 10 knot breeze. However, by Race 3 on the first day this had turned into over 20 knot wind over tide and some rough conditions with 6 boats retiring. On Sunday the fleet reappeared to a south westerly 10-12 knots and enjoyed 2 races including a downwind start which had some hearts beating at the first mark but everyone gave mark room and all got around cleanly.

Folkboat 'Gybe N' GBR 669 (Simon Evans / Cy Grisley / Richard Clark) dominated the event with 2 wins, 2 seconds and then spent the last race match racing with Folkboat Madelaine GBR 707 (Ed Donald) to ensure overall victory and push Madeleine into third place.

Second place was taken by the Walters family on Cidron Too GBR 669 with consistent finishes in the top 4 across the races. The Otter GBR 720 (Claire Locke / Rich Bell) took 4th place, closely followed by Eala GBR754 (Alistair Maclean). Also impressive was Tarka GBR 690, recently purchased by James Young who took 5th overall.

So the Solent delivered variable winds and the tides and the Folkboats proved again what a great fleet it is to sail with, as despite a MOB (quickly retrieved), a broken mast, broken forestay and a few other minor breakages on the boats, everyone enjoyed the weekend racing and socials.

With the Taittinger Regatta and Folkboat week at Royal Solent coming up alongside the regular Thursdays and Saturdays at Royal Lymington Folkboats remain one of the busiest fleets in the Solent.

Overall Results:
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