Magic Marine RS400 Southern Championships - Lymington Town SC

Calling the final race of the RS400 Southern Area Championships in Lymington close, would be the understatement of the weekend, possibly the season.

As Paul Oakey and Jamie Pidduck [1441] came smoking into their last gybe, around the last mark, of the last race of the regatta they were lying 4^th overall.

As they emerged on port, still on the plane, eyes fixed on the finish, it was clear that they had judged their manoeuvre and the lay line perfectly.

Furthermore, they had gybed inside and overtaken Howard Farbrother and Dan Martin [1418] who had been leading the charge throughout the last race of the four races on Sunday, only to aim for the wrong leeward mark.

In less than 200m Oakey and Pidduck had leapt from 4^th to 1^st overall.

But it was even closer than that.

Among the 41 entries for the event, Jon Heissig and Nicky Griffin [1454] had their eyes on the silverware over the weekend by delivering an impressively consistent scoreline of seconds and thirds while others danced around them. Their efforts meant that they had gone into the final race with the lowest gross points yet despite delivering another solid third, they had emerged equal first with Oakey and Pidduck.

Clearly, with the rules for a tie break favouring the last to win, it was Oakey and Co. that took the biggest of the three trophies home.

Pointing at the wrong leeward mark at a critical time had cost Farbrother and Martin dearly, dropping them to 4^th.

For many of us, this right royal battle for the chocolates was irrelevant as we endeavoured to run with the big dogs. But no one was complaining.

Those that remained for the final two races once the breeze and tide had built, enjoyed a full on, downhill foam up. That, and the superb close racing with nip and tuck gybes, crashes, nose dives and kite trawls aplenty.

In fact, the breeze wasn’t that strong, around 16-18knots from the south west. But the building spring ebb tide that pressed against the steady breeze boosted the apparent breeze to just over 20 knots and kicked up waves made for surfing.

With 2-3 knots of tide, the mark roundings were fun too, a combination of rally style handbrake turns on a race track that felt like a treadmill.

There will be stories aplenty from this regatta, but aside from the trophy winners, among the many impressive performances was that of George Bridge and Henry Marsh sailing 1051. Not only were they probably the youngest pair in the fleet, but appeared to weigh less than a bag of crisps - without the crisps. Given the conditions they were impressively quick. In fact, frustratingly quick for the two previous owners of the boat who were racing their newer models and were forced to stare at the transom on several occasions. (No names, no shame).

On a separate tack, the organisation at the Lymington Town Sailing club was also very impressive. So too was the après-race hospitality that saw a full club bar and dance floor well into the night leading to scores of hangovers the following morning that you could have sold to medical science.

Sadly, four back to back races in champagne conditions didn’t offer the cure that some required or were expecting.

So what of Saturday’s racing? Light and shifty for the two races that were run. Not to everyone’s taste, but once again it was still the same people that found their way to the front.

For most, the real deal was Sunday which delivered some of the best racing the fleet has seen this season and doubtless some more tall stories to fuel the next social.

Matt Sheahan [1435]

FINAL RESULTS BELOW.