Jumping Jellyfish sweeps to Lymington round victory and opens a 9-point series lead
Round 3 of the Solent Super Series managed to get 2 of the 3 scheduled races in under a less-than-optimistic forecast; 12 of the 15 entered teams made their way to the start line near Lepe. After the on-time start at 10:30, the little breeze vanished, and a building west-going tide made progress to Mark 1 impossible. The call was made to abandon and move the fleet across to the Hill Head Plateau, where Race 1 restarted, teams now able to make progress to the windward mark after 50 mins of racing, before heading past Cowes to the finish off Newtown Creek.
In the 3 to 8 knot winds from the south-east, it was the slippery J109 Jumping Jellyfish who took line honours and the win, 3 minutes 49 seconds of corrected time clear of Ian Hoddle’s Game On. Gareth Edmondson’s JPK 1030 Insert Coin placed third. The fight for fourth was far closer: the SF3200s Zanzibar and Beetle finished a single second apart after IRC time correction.
A super quick turnaround after repositioning ‘Cowes United’ for a Start Line allowed the fleet to get away in the localised 5-8 knots of breeze, the ebb tide seemingly reversing instantly for the start of Race 2 to the east. Jumping Jellyfish led the fleet home again, winning by more than seven minutes. Behind them came the recoveries. RORC Griffin climbed from 9th to 2nd, and Cal Finlayson’s One Way went from 12th to 3rd, 28 seconds ahead of Horizon Hunter. Meanwhile, the Race 1 front-runners Game On and Insert Coin slipped to 6th and 8th, and Zanzibar dropped from 4th to 11th, all courtesy of a big wind shift at the leeward mark requiring teams to be on their toes to drop spinnakers and hoist jibs in their shorthanded [Max 4] crew format. Check out the tracking, which clearly shows this strange wind event.
The fleet arrived at dusk into the welcoming Lymington Yacht Haven, a partner of Round 3. The Solent Super Series hospitality team took over from the race team and welcomed the crews back on the dock with warm soup and sausage rolls a kick-off for the evening’s dinner.
Welcome drinks, supported by Unity Sailing, were served at the Mayflower Pub where a warm fire and soft furnishings were the backdrop to exchanges of tactical stories and analysis. Unity Sailing raced their Sun Fast 3200 and 3600 this round, so the fleet got to see the team’s coaching on the water as well as at the bar. Before serving food, Prize Time was held, where ‘congratulations’ were cheered for the worthy winners of Round 2, Tigris, who were presented with four Musto MPX fleece-lined waterproof caps for their win in Yarmouth.
The Prize Draw followed, with tables being drummed in anticipation. The top prize was a coach for the day from Unity Sailing, which went to the day’s big winners, Jumping Jellyfish, crew member Freya Anderson blindly pulled her own team’s token from the Musto prize bag. The Crew Prize of four Musto Bobble Hats went to RockIt, and a bottle of wine to be collected at Round 4 went to Beetle.
Jumping Jellyfish Tactician Freya Anderson reflected: “After a short AP (and fortunately for us, an abandoned start!) the Solent delivered some glamour conditions for Round 3. On Saturday, our main goal was to make full advantage of the tide and hunt the occasional band of wind down the course. Fortunately, we stuck to this strategy well and managed to round the windward mark of the first race in first place. From then on, it was a long kite leg with a few gybe marks scattered before we reached the finish. As it seems with all light air races, we were nervously watching the boats behind us come down with more pressure than we had, but managed to hold on to first as we crossed the line.“
“The second race was a similar story, with a short upwind before a downwind leg to just off Lymington. After a reasonable start, we rounded the windward mark in 5th place so had some catching up to do. We gybed off early in order to get clean air and stay in the last of the favourable tide for as long as possible. With a few short gybes to condense the gap on the pack, we successfully worked our way back into podium contention, and then the fun began! While we were very aware the tide had turned by the time we reached the leeward mark, I’m not sure any of us anticipated just how strong it had already become and a very early kite drop ensued. Fortunately for us, no one noticed our big mistake and dropped equally early, meaning we rounded the leeward mark in first. From then on it was a ‘rich got richer’ situation, so we had a comfortable upwind to a shortened course.”
“All in all, it was a great weekend in very forgiving conditions. Who would have known it could be so sunny in November?”
With one round to go, David Richards’ J109 Jumping Jellyfish has taken a firm grip on the 2026 Solent Super Series title. A clean sweep of Saturday’s two races at Lymington gave them 2 points for Round 3, and they head to the finale with a 9-point lead, clear of the 2025 champions RORC Griffin, with Tigris a further 3 points adrift in third.
Any series is built on consistency, and Jumping Jellyfish have had plenty of it. They have won four of the five races they have started this season and have never finished lower than 2nd. Their only blemish, a DNS in Round 2, has been discarded.
Three boats finished Round 3 on 11 points. RORC Griffin took 3rd on countback, ahead of Insert Coin and Chris Hanson’s SF3300 RockIt, with Horizon Hunter sixth on 12 points.
In the overall standings:
Tigris are the story behind the story. A win in Round 2 put them in the title picture, and they have held third on steady results since. Game On, who missed Round 2, fall to fourth after strong results in Rounds 1 and 3.
The 2026 series concludes with Round 4 on the 21st November with the fleet this time heading East, stopping off in Gunwharf Quays the Round 4 sponsor. With a 9-point gap to close, RORC Griffin and Tigris have a lot of work to do, and Jumping Jellyfish will want to keep it clean.
Find the results, race tracking and images over on the Round 3 – Lymington page.
