Light and variable

A report from the latest round of the Royal Southampton YC's Winter Series

The fifth race of the Royal Southampton Yacht Club’s Winter Series was held on Sunday 7th November with a variable northwesterly breeze that varied from reasonable to ghostly during the period of the race.

Class 1 IRC saw John Webb & Lyn Evans’ J/35 Just Plain Sailing taking both line honours and victory on corrected time from Andrew Percival in his now back on form Corby 33 Big Boys Toys, who was just 5 seconds ahead of Mike Garvey in third on his X-332 X Parrot. Hooligan V had been going well but tried to beat the tide a bit too vigorously and ran aground near Netley.

Class 2 IRC had Steve Sault on his Sigma 33 Hooligan taking line honours but being pushed into second place by Peter Walker on Jemima a J/22 who took first on handicap by just six seconds. Chris Broadbent brought Maybee III, his MG335, home for third.

Class 3 Club class suffered with the wind falling to 4 knots at the start against the tide but Peter Armitage on his Sweden Yachts 38 Cosmic Dancer V pushed on to take line honours. First place on handicap went to everyone’s friend Richard Walker in his Micro Gem Urchin II, with Jon Woolgar keeping up his good performances on Green Kestrel the Westerly GK29 second and Anthony Huggett on the Feeling 326 Sylvie third.

In the Multihull Class, George Burn showed that he was getting to grips with his new steed Force X the D920 Extreme by taking line honours but was dropped into second place by James Stewart on his Dragonfly 920 Ngalawa who added the win on handicap to his cabinet. Grant Kelly riding his Farrier F27 Beatus took third.