RS Aero Lift Off and Demo day at Bewl Valley Sailing Club
by Peter Barton 16 May 2015 05:48 NZST
2 May 2015
RS Aero Lift Off and Demo day at Bewl Valley © Pete Barton
Bewl played host to the 7th RS Aero 'Lift-Off' event held since November for a busy day's induction, coaching and demoing. The event combined with Bewl's 'Volvo Sailing Academy' and 'In the Blue' day providing lots of activity with options available to family and friends too. The RS Aero event was open to both members and visitors with a total of 18 sailors taking to the water.
We kicked off with an informative run through the boat; rigging, launching, boat care and design. Then we moved on to the sailing side of things; sail controls, technique and boat handling – describing many Aero specifics where the lightweight 30kg hull and responsive carbon rig may vary from previous classes sailed.
Being a Volvo day we were privileged to have the Team Volvo Olympic Squad Sailors in attendance and Nick Thompson, 4 times Laser World Championship medallist and all round top bloke, was on hand to help out with his really smart top tips on good hiking techniques.
Over the course of the day in the medium breezes we had a varied range of sailors from 45kg 12 year olds feeling their way with the smaller '5' rig to 100kg adults enjoying the power of the larger '9' rig.
Two sailors had orders already in place and wanted to test sail to confirm. All went well with the sailors now eager for delivery and one adding the versatility of an additional rig!
One brand spanking new boat was delivered to its new owners, the Freeland family, of Downs SC on Kent's east coast. I was intrigued of their story of how they use shingle sledges rather than trolleys to master the steep shingle beach! Here is a nice time-lapse movie of them putting their RS Aero together on the day.
This Saturday is the first event in the UK Series at Chelmarsh SC were Magic Marine have stepped up to support with some fantastic prizes.
The Worldwide demo drive continues with no less than 3 that we know of taking place at:
- Santa Barbara, California, USA
- Lipno Lake, Czech Republic
- La Grande Motte, South of France
For more info on what's going on in the RS Aero Class check out; www.rsaerosailing.org