RS Aero Magic Marine Southern Championship at Lymington Town SC

by Karl Thorne on 23 Jun 2016 The RS Aeros formed part of the hugely popular RS Classes Southerns extravaganza event which maxed out at its 160 boat capacity a month in advance! There were a total of 27 RS Aero entries across the three RS Aero rig sizes, with the largest being the ‘7’ fleet with 15 boats. The fleet was grouped into two starts, with the five and nine rigs going together shortly followed by the seven rigs.

In the ‘5’ fleet, the racing was a close battle between recently crowned National Champion Archie Hainsworth and Matthew Caiger representing Sevenoaks School. In the end Matthew came out on top by a point. Both of these youth sailors showed excellent skill especially on the Sunday in testing wind over tide conditions and pushed each other hard in every race.

The ‘7’ fleet was dominated by local sailor Chloe Martin who counted four first places and discarded a first. Pretty convincing really, and hardly surprising given the level of results in Laser Radials that Chloe has previously achieved. It certainly set a high benchmark and everybody enjoyed getting a momentarily look at 'how to do it properly”.

Another young local sailor and Scorpion fleet legend Alex Hayman was second overall counting only podium results. In third place was Isle of Wight based Jane Peckham showing blistering upwind speed in Sunday’s breeze. Special mention needs to be made of Ffinlo Wright travelling from the Isle of Man for the event achieving fourth place, taking a long break from sailing whilst he studied for his GCSEs.

In the ‘9’ fleet regular class travellers Richard Watsham, Nigel Rolfe and Matt Thursfield slugged it out for the top three positions, with Class met expert and jolly nice bloke Richard coming out on top with three wins. A mention in dispatches is required for Burghfield sailor Peter Chaplin taking a win on Saturday and then backing it up with two OCS to celebrate on Sunday!

It was very encouraging to see such a broad range of ages and sizes sailing the boats, and also the female near domination in the 7 fleet. Proving once again that the flexibility of the sail choice and excellent control of the carbon rig makes the boat manageable and enjoyable for everyone.

Well done to all at Lymington Town Sailing Club for pulling off this gigantic sailing extravaganza in their 70th anniversary year and a whopping great Saturday night party too! Thanks to Magic Marine and Harken for their great support.

Rank	Sail	Helm	Club	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Total	Nett
1st	1562	Matthew Caiger - Youth	Sevenoaks School	1	(4.0 DSQ)	1	2	1	9	5
2nd	1173	Archie Hainsworth - Youth	Alton Water SC	-2	1	2	1	2	8	6
3rd	1889	Julia Bailey - Lady	Royal Yacht Squadron	(4.0 DNC)	2	4.0 OCS	4.0 DNC	4.0 RET	18	14