RS Aeros at the Lymington Dinghy Regatta

2019 Lymington Dinghy Regatta © Paul French

Wow, what a testing weekend! If our sport was easy we might become bored and stop bothering. However Lymington this weekend gave us all plenty of challenges to think about, including the race team!

Saturday saw a medium offshore breeze with patches and shifts increasing in size and frequency as we approached the top of the coarse. What initially seemed like a biased course was, on average about right over the races, all credit to the PRO! Add to that the cross-tide making start lines and lay lines very hard to judge. If that was not enough to get your head fizzing the tide turned half way through the three races, requiring a continually evolving game plan!

2019 Lymington Dinghy Regatta - photo © Paul French

Sunday provided another challenge with a beat against the tide providing a difficult mark rounding as well as the lay line call, all followed by a speedy ride back down the course. The wind held up and the racing was good - but hard!

All 41 RS Aeros raced together on PY, embracing the regatta principle and in order to allow everyone some big fleet practice in preparation for the large Championships coming up.

2019 Lymington Dinghy Regatta - photo © Paul French

In the light breezes and tide the RS Aero 5s had a challenge with their smaller sails with Sammy Isaacs Johnson (Maidenhead) doing well to top the Class in finishing 13th overall. The best race result for the 5s was Lily Barrett (Island Barn), a creditable 7th overall on PY in Race 2, leaving many 7s in her wake!

There were three prototype RS Aero 6 rigs racing on trial. Well done to Alice Lucy (Rutland) who was up with the front-runners in Race 1 for a while and ultimately finished top of Class.

2019 Lymington Dinghy Regatta - photo © Paul French

The RS Aero 7s were the largest fleet. The ladies were often giving the gents the slip with Jenny Bennett (Lym Town) 1st RS Aero 7 in Race 4 and Ellie Craig (Draycote) 1st in Race 6 and 3rd RS Aero 7 in the regatta overall. However it was Peter Barton (Lym Town) and super speedy David Ellis (Lym Town) who took the top spots respectively.

Champion of the RS Aero 9s was Greg Bartlett (Lym Town & Starcross), enjoying the power of the big rig to take 2nd overall.

2019 Lymington Dinghy Regatta - photo © Paul French

Thanks to passionate regatta supporters, Harken, who laid on an excellent spread of prizes and an awesome Saturday night raffle. Many thanks also to all the volunteers at Lymington Town and the Royal Lymington for putting on another excellent regatta. Next year we will have brisk sea breezes ruffling up the western solent for sure!

It is all go for the RS Aeros now with nearly 50 boats at the Class UK Youth Nationals at Rutland this weekend. The UK Nationals follows with 80 RS Aeros signed up for North Berwick, Scotland, the week after. A short break then sees over 100 RS Aeros travel from across the world to Lake Garda, Italy, for the RS Aero European Champs in August.

Full details of all events are on the RS Aero Events List; www.rsaerosailing.org/index.asp?p=events

Overall Results: