Write-Up

RS Aero 6 & 9 UK National Championship - Felpham, West Sussex, UK, 25-27 May 2024
Supported by Rooster

WOW, what a Championship!

Where's Felpham?   Felpham Sailing Club in West Sussex is probably the best kept secret on the south coast. It enjoys open sea and excellent English Channel rollers to surf downwind on. The sea breeze cranks up and the race area is straight off the beach in front of the club, giving a very quick sail out and great spectating from the clubhouse balcony and promenade. Felpham SC were the perfect welcoming hosts. They provided expert assistance on launch and recovery when the shore break got testing at high tide, assistance loading and unloading to welcome arrivals, cakes after racing, cozy bar, friendly galley with wonderfully bulging bacon butties!

The Championship saw good fleets of 43 RS Aero 6s and 18 RS Aero 9s, 61 RS Aeros in total, and benefited from a good mix of conditions. Day 1 saw light/medium winds and flatish seas followed by two days of the most excellent waves and fresh breezes. This gave everyone an opportunity at the front, great racing and very exciting off wind legs with flat out planing on reaches and precariously weaving down the wave troughs to gain places on the run.

Day 1 was the lighter day with 6-10kn, but with plenty of wind to put our shoulders back occasionally. We were fortunate to have International Juror, Chris Atkins, in attendance helping to keep our racing fair and enjoyable whilst also giving the fleet good Juror and RRS42 experience ready for this summer's International Championships.

The RS Aero 6 results showed consistency to be key with Andrew Frost (Sutton Bingham), Abby Hire (Lymington) and Steve Jackson (Lee on Solent) coming out ahead. Several potential contenders were notably buried in the pack.

The RS Aero 9s saw the first race win go to Dom Hall (Hayling) after a chasing Ben Flower (Paignton) took a yellow flag turn at the end of the run. Ben went on to take the next two wins with Peter Barton (Lymington) taking two 2nds.

Saturday evening saw the RS Aero 10th Anniversary Karaoke Championship. A wide range of talent was in part masked by an abundance of enthusiasm - but you can only kid the judges so far! The international panel awarded the win to the sweet voice of Abigail Larr, whilst notable Poor Performances came from RoryC, BenF, MarkR and PeterB.  Full Karaoke Results

Day 2 - Big Sunday!
We woke to wind and rain, but the rain cleared off early to leave clear blue skies and a fresh breeze reaching 22kn, gusting 26kn. The waves were building and we could all see we were in for a big day. Game on!

The graft to the top mark was worth every moment for the screaming reaches bouncing across the waves and the downwind run - launching off the crests, accelerating down the wave faces then weaving through the troughs to avoid the wave in front. Yee-haa!

The RS Aero 6 fleet saw a change at the top with those who preferred stronger winds regularly at the front. Noah Rees (Torpoint Mosquito) scored a clean sweep of 1sts with Jack Miller (Felpham) and Andrew Kilburn (RS Sailing) close behind with 2s, 3s and 4s.

In the RS Aero 9s the big boys worked valiantly to control the power of their mighty rigs and keep them pointing upwards above their hulls. Ben Flower also saw a clean sweep of 1sts with Peter Barton taking the 2nds and Dom Hall the 3rds.

After racing the Felpham SC beach crew, aided by the RS Aero fleet, did an incredible job of getting the fleet ashore safely as the high tide shore break kicked up. Thank goodness for our featherweight hulls and gunwales to enable easy lifting to launch and recover in surf!

After three hard exhilarating races and an exciting surf in the fleet were delighted to see an RS Aero 10th Birthday Cake in the club house, it was delicious! And what a day to celebrate it!!!

Day 3 started and little lighter than the day before at about 16kn but as the skies cleared the wind piped up well into the 20kns+, and similar to Big Sunday by the end.

In the RS Aero 6s Noah Rees secured his lead with a 1,1,2, enabling him to discard his 44UFD &16 from Day 1 for a 'comfortable' win. Similarly, Jack took 2nd overall with a 2,8,1, enabling him to discard his 17 & 12 from Day 1. A one lap 'sprint finish' final race was set to beat the high tide for boat recovery back onto the beach. Andrew Frost gave it his all against the strong wind supremos but in pushing the limits downwind was tripped over and swallowed by the Felpham seas, leaving him relying on his earlier results to take 3rd overall.

Ben clinched the RS Aeros 9s with a Race 7 win before returning to shore for a lie down, the title already secure. That left Peter an opportunity to take the win in R8 and Chris Larr powered away from the pack in R9 to stay ahead downwind and take the final win.

Everyone left Felpham worn out and aching through their endeavours, but with fantastic memories of a very enjoyable few days and the experience of some very exciting sailing conditions!

Congratulations to those who made the decision not to launch when the conditions turned testing, to those with the courage to launch, to those who survived the downwinds to complete races and to the winners!

Thanks to all at Felpham SC for a fantastic championship and to Rooster for their generous support of the prizes and our RS Aero UK Nationals custom kit.

Photos - Thanks to Jonathan Bailey and Tony Lord
Summer 2024 Gallery for a summary selection of larger images by both Jonathan Bailey and Tony Lord
Facebook Album for a selection of both Jonathan Bailey and Tony Lord's images
Day 1,  Day 2,  Day 3   Google Drive for a full selection of Jonathan Bailey's images
Felpham SC Website for a full selection of Tony Lord's images

Sign Up Now to be part of the RS Aero 5 & 7 UK National Championship at East Lothian YC, North Berwick, 28 July- 2 Aug !

Results