Lymington Town Sailing Club Charity Pursuit Race

Mike Lyons & Simon Beddows win the Lymington Town Charity Pursuit Race © Barry Sticklen

Lymington Town Sailing Club Charity Pursuit Race for Dinghies In aid of Children in Need 20th November 2011

Light winds were the order of the day, with plenty of sunshine and unseasonably warm weather for the thirty Dinghies that raced in Lymington Town Sailing Club's annual charity pursuit race in aid of Children in Need.

At 10.30 hrs, with the slowest boats starting first, it was the Streaker of Adrian Baker that went off into an early lead and was never was quite caught by the pursuing faster boats, the last to start, at 11.00am others, being the trim, Mayfly, with John Levell at the helm. Unfortunately Adrian Baker had miss timed his start by a minute and was disqualified as a premature starter.

The next group of boats were a new design of two man dinghy, the Icon, sailed by its builder Mike Lyons and Simon Beddows, the Blaze of Miles Mence and the Merlin Rocket of Ian Sanderson and Emma Vaughan. These three spent the whole race in close proximity with the Icon being marginally quicker to windward while the Merlin Rocket used her spinnaker to come back on the downwind legs.

The next group of boats were the single hander's with asymmetric gennikers, Richard Russell in his new RS100 just keeping ahead of his old boat, an RS Vareo now owned by Tim Power. The trapeze dinghies were struggling to make up time on the boats from the medium handicap fleet and only the RS800 of Luke and Emma McEwen and an RS400 with Keith and Liam Willis breaking into the top ten.

The winners were Mike Lyons and Simon Beddows with Ian Sanderson and Emma Vaughan second and Myles Mence in third. Also winning were the Children in Need as £2,399.75 was raised by the event.