RS Aero Winter Championships overall

by Peter Barton on 7 Jan 2015 2015 RS Aero Winter Championships - The RS Aero Class decided to make The Oxford Blue event of the GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series their class Winter Champs and with up to 20 boats a week being delivered to owners at the end of 2014 they managed to round up an impressive 25 entries within six months of the first boats being delivered. The overall event reached its capacity of 150 entries, which is a record, and the Aeros were a whopping one sixth of that!

With a variable forecast 17 of those sailors opted for the larger nine rig which led to some great class racing whilst the smaller seven and five rigs competed with them on a handicap basis.

A bit of rain first thing didn't dampen the enthusiasm for the class’ first biggie. The first race was light and became a drifter. However, for the second and third races the wind piped up to a fun 12-16 knots allowing for fast planning on the reaches. The big rigs then became energetic at times but good fun and very manageable on the flat water.

In the ‘RS Aero 9’ Ben Pickering (Chase), the 2014 Blaze National Champ, was right on it from the outset leading all three races. Peter Barton (Lymington) managed to mount comebacks to take the lead by the end of races one and two. Al Keck (Bowmoor) and Jamie Freeman (Oulton) were consistently battling at the front. Peter Townend (Chelmarsh), Matt Thursfield (Chelmarsh) and Anthony Lynall (Avon) all had appearances near the front through the day. Good competitive racing was spread throughout the fleet.

Paul Robson (Reading) led the ‘RS Aero 7’ rigs overall and placed highly on corrected time against the nines. In the light first race, George Catchpole (Oulton), having only taken delivery in time for Christmas managed to win the sevens.

Some of the most noteworthy achievements of the day came out of the ‘RS Aero 5’ rigs. Five dedicated weekends of RS Aero 5 training have been organized this winter in conjunction with the RS Tera squad. Already the ‘Aeronauts’ are looking very confident in their new boats across the spectrum. As the breeze piped up to 12-16 knots, Will Taylor (Royal Mersey) in his 'RS Aero 5' beat most of the bigger sailed boats from various classes in our start group to the first mark and was still well up at the leeward mark after two reaches and a run!

SailRacer furnished all boats with GPS trackers. These really added value by being able to sort out complex results and produce interesting data and stats. With these everyone’s max speed of the day is recorded and can then be corrected by relevant Class handicaps. Incredibly, the fastest ‘snapshot’ handicap corrected max speed of the day was by an RS Aero 5 where Archie Hainsworth (RHS), a 13 year old weighing in at just 50kg, managed for a moment to plane his superlight Aero hull to record a (handicap corrected) max speed faster than any of the other 140 boats on the water!

An excited Archie commented; 'The RS Aero is a great boat. At times I thought I was going twice as fast as the Tera ever did even though the wind was low. The boat glided through the water with very little noise. These were the best of times. It was a very enjoyable weekend at Oxford, teaching me a lot about the boat. I'd like to thank RS for such a great boat. I went the fastest on the first reach of race two slipping past several boats planing when no one else was, fantastic!'

Last month at Hayling when a 35 knot squall came through in training Archie had a really tough time of it. Well done for smashing this one Archie!

 

RS Aero Winter Championships Results
Rank	Helm	Club	sail	Class	GL-PY	R1	R2	R3	Total	Nett
1st	Peter BARTON	Lymington Town SC	1175	RS Aero 9	1015	1	1	-2.5	4.5	2
2nd	Ben PICKERING	Chase SC	1205	RS Aero 9	1015	2	-3	1	6	3
3rd	Al KECK	Bowmoor SC	1068	RS Aero 9	1015	-5	2	5	12	7
4th	Jamie FREEMAN	Waveney & Oulton	1144	RS Aero 9	1015	3	4	-7	14	7
5th	Paul ROBSON	Reading SC	1079	RS Aero 7	1040	-8	5	4	17	9
6th	Matt THURSFIELD	Chelmarsh SC	1208	RS Aero 9	1015	-11	7	2.5	20.5	9.5
7th	Will TAYLOR	Royal Mersey YC	1164	RS Aero 5	1080	-14	6	6	26	12
8th	Peter TOWNEND	Chelmarsh SC	1093	RS Aero 9	1015	5	8	-9	22	13
9th	George CATCHPOLE	Waveney & Oulton	1183	RS Aero 7	1040	7	9	-10	26	16
10th	Antony LYNALL	Avon SC	1007	RS Aero 9	1015	5	-16	12	33	17
11th	Chris FEIBUSCH	Hayling Island SC	1206	RS Aero 9	1015	9	-12	8	29	17
12th	Phil WHITE	FramptonOnSevern	1135	RS Aero 9	1015	10	-13	11	34	21
13th	Ben POE	Sutton Bingham	1107	RS Aero 5	1080	-13	10	13	36	23
14th	Kent MARTIN	Ogston SC	1089	RS Aero 9	1015	26.0 DNC	11	14	51	25
15th	Tony JUKES	Chelmarsh	1095	RS Aero 9	1015	12	15	-17	44	27
16th	Peter GALE	Redditch SC	1133	RS Aero 9	1015	15	14	-20	49	29
17th	Archie HAINSWORTH	RHS	1173	RS Aero 5	1080	16	-18	16	50	32
18th	Mark TISSIMAN	Chelmarsh SC	1207	RS Aero 9	1015	19	-20	15	54	34
19th	Jim HOOD	Lymington Town SC	1209	RS Aero 9	1015	17	17	26.0 DNC	60	34
20th	Richard WOODS	Chelmarsh SC	1092	RS Aero 9	1015	18	-19	19	56	37
21st	Martin HEWITT	Nottingham SC	1076	RS Aero 9	1015	20	-21	18	59	38
22nd	Robathan ROBATHAN	Oxford SC	1103	RS Aero 5	1080	26.0 DNC	23	21	70	44
23rd	Richard ROWE	Poole YC	1156	RS Aero 7	1040	26.0 DNC	22	26.0 DNC	74	48
24th	Peter CHAPLIN	Burghfield SC	1071	RS Aero 7	1040	26.0 DNC	26.0 DNC	26.0 DNC	78	52
24th	Chris JONES	Chelmarsh SC	1097	RS Aero 9	1015	26.0 DNC	26.0 DNC	26.0 DNC	78	52