Wow what a day! A whopping 61 RS Aeros entered with the 37 RS Aero 5s scoring a recent history* record for largest Class at the Bloody Mary (and any SailJuice Winter Series event ever!) and also for the RS Aeros as the largest entry from any family of Classes with 61. A huge achievement from a modern Class still just 5 years old!

 

The temperatures were a relatively mild 10'C and the rain held off. However, the wind blew over 20kns with gusts frequently hitting 30kn during the day. With the wind's direction directly onshore launching down QM's steep shelving banks looked daunting with such a high proportion of young sailors in the fleet.

 

5 years ago just 5 RS Aeros competed at the Class' first Bloody Mary with Team Luxembourg flying in to try out the Class and sample this iconic mass crazy English event. Launching conditions were similar then, with 30kn gusts blowing onto the steep shoreline. We successfully carried the RS Aeros into the water that day, enjoying the revelation of the easily handled light weight RS Aero hull at the one of the Class' first outings.

 

So, a mass plan was already in place to lift the large fleet of RS Aeros bow first into the water without trollies. Several teams of the bigger sailors and parents assisted the smaller & younger ones. Whilst 2 adults can easily lift an RS Aero, this was conducted super safely with at least 4 people to each boat for ease and in case anyone slipped. Sailors jumped in, inserted their daggers and had their rudders flicked down for them as they were pushed off. The 61 RS Aeros were all safely afloat and ready to race in no time at all! Check out the Timelapse Launch Movie thanks to Anthony May.

 

The total entry for the mass mixed Class Pursuit Race race this year was 288. The Toppers were the first to start at 12:00 with 150 minutes to race until 14:30. The RS Aero 5s were set to start 25 minutes after the Toppers, giving them a 7 minute head start on the RS Aero 7s. They in turn had a 5 minute lead on the RS Aero 9s. The breeze was piping up at start time and the fleet of 37 RS Aero 5s looked awesome off the start line as they set off in pursuit of the Radials and Solos who had strated just a couple of minutes earlier.

 

Racing the Bloody Mary is all about making good sustained progress. You need to cover the course as quickly as possible, overtaking slower boats efficiently in the hope that by the end of the race few of the high performance chasing pack will catch you.

 

For a non trapeze boat on a windy day the RS Aeros did fantastically overall! Tim Hire in his RS Aero 7 was Top-Aero claiming a brilliant 11th place overall. Tim caught Ned Stattersfield, the 1st RS Aero 5 sailor who finished 12th, just before the finish. Peter Barton was close behind in 14th, unable to quite catch speedy Ned in the last few minutes. 3rd RS Aero 7 has Noah Rees in 26th, fresh home from his 3rd place at the World Champs in Australia. Ellie Craig raced an RS Aero 5 this time to finish 2nd in Class and 27th overall with Sam Blaker 3rd RS Aero 5 in 33rd. Chris Larr led the RS Aero 9s home in 59th overall with Greg Bartlett not far behind.

 

Interestingly there was a good even mix of RS Aero 5s and RS Aero 7s through the fleet. This demonstrated a reasonable match of PYs on the day and suggests a successful evolvement of the PY numbers over the last few years as good data has become available.

 

The Bloody Mary was the 5th of 8 rounds in the Selden SailJuice Winter Series and the RS Aeros are holding their own on the results sheets. The RS Aero 7 Class' successful day now puts them in close contention for the Top-Class spot. Tim Hire continues to lead the Youth division and Abigail Larr holds 3rd overall in the Juniors. In the Ladies results Ellie Craig holds 3rd, ready to pounce on the top spot. SailJuice Results

 

NEXT UP in the Selden SailJuice Winter Series is the King George Gallop on Sunday 26th, closely followed by Rutland's Tiger Trophy on the 1/2nd Feb and the RS Aero UK Winter Champs at the Oxford Blue on Saturday 15th Feb.

 

LARGER PHOTOS 

 

*since good records and the 350 total limit