Fantastic start to the RS600 season
by Lee Bratley 7 Mar 2018 10:16 GMT
28th Exe Sails Starcross Steamer © Garnett Showell
It has been a fantastic start to 2018 already for the RS600s - and we're barely into March. At the recent RS 'Emergence of Season Championship' at Queen Mary SC, a fleet of 600s had a whale of a time over the (very cold) weekend culminating not only in Richard 'Dickie' Smith being named RS600 'E.O.S' Champion but he also won the Sunday pursuit race! Great work Dickie and a fantastic showing for the boat.
It was a brilliant effort by all taking part as the temperatures really did bite - though not enough to put a dampener on the quality sailing. Thanks to all at RS Sailing and Queen Mary Sailing Club for putting together such a great event to kick off the new sailing year.
Speaking of great events, this year's RYA Dinghy Show saw an RS600 stand for the first time in many years, providing more proof of the reality of our resurgence - if more was actually needed.
With fantastic support from both RS and our builder 'Boatyard at Beer', we had plenty of interest in these almost iconic high-performance dinghies as Ian's boat took centre stage looking as glorious in a way that only a 600 can. With many enquiries about available boats and our 2018 programme, we also seem set to see newer faces into the fleet as we make our way through the year.
This is all superb news for the class and with 'ready to go' boats selling for around the thousand pound mark we're a perfect class with which to have fun at the 'RS Games' at the WPNSA in August.
The 600s will be racing on the 23rd, 24th & 25th of August - perfect for a bank holiday break in Weymouth - so what are you waiting for? Find a boat, come to our events and training days and have an absolute blast out on the waters of Weymouth & Portland!
Bough Beech SC will see the first of our training days for the year on Saturday March 17th and, even if you don't actually have a boat, you're welcome to come on down to see the boat in action and maybe even have a test sail if conditions allow. This event is also the first in a series of 600 events supported by Allen Sailing.
Allen have watched our growth and steady development during the last 18 months and saw us as a great partner for their own developments in high performance dinghy gear and will be with us throughout 2018 and hopefully beyond, so we must offer up our biggest thanks to Allen for their faith and support.
With all parts available from our builder Boatyard at Beer, support from Allen Sailing, the RS Class Association and RS Sailing - with even whispers about new boat builds and development in the year ahead, these are very exciting times to be involved with the incredible RS600, so a massive thank-you to all that have supported us and helped so far.
Here's to a fantastic year to everyone in the UK dinghy scene and hopefully we'll see you all out on the water.
Fair Winds!