Friday, May 09, 2014

Buff Staysail reviews the RS Aero


G’day all! Buff Staysail here, Buff by name and Buff by nature!

It looks like the world has gone RS Aero mad,  but will Buff be joining Tillerman in getting one?

Alas the video of Buff’s test sail was lost when the darn thing capsized and my iPhone 3S got dunked - which should tell you something!

So instead lets look at the Yachting World video with a bit of classic Buff commentary:

0:34 - Matthew fails to point out that the RS Aero has NO cup holders. Jeez, where’s my tinny meant to go?

0:55 - Matthew is clearly getting a wet bum here and it really doesn’t look good to have shorts with wet patches. Also for some reason the waterline was much lower on the one I tested

1:19 - Matthew needs to cleat the mainsheet off but despite a $ 7,000 price tag, RS’s budget didn’t seem to stretch to one

1:45 - How are you meant to sunbath on this thing’s foredeck? Doh!!

2:00 - Do you see how the boom is about to hit Matthew on the head at any moment? The RS Aero clearly has headroom issues

2:18 - See! Matthew is desperate for a cleat!

2:56 - Time to go swimming. Buff’s very familiar with this: typical of unstable dinghies.

3:06 - Eh? What happened? Now we’re ashore. Did he get it righted or not?

Ok, so on to the round-up of this self-declared light-weight.

Buff says: with no cup holders, no mainsheet cleat, no foredeck, lacking in headroom and having stability issues, the RS Aero is a toy for the wet-suit crowd, not something for the gentleman cruiser.

This is Buff Staysail, boat reviewer extraordinaire, over and out!

3 comments:

O Docker said...

Right on, Buff.

How are you supposed to enjoy lunch or take a nap if you can't cleat off the sheet?

They seem to have wasted all their design time fussing with the chines, whatever they are.

Bursledon Blogger said...

I think it's a typo - RS chimes to make sailing in fog easier

Buff Staysail said...

If it should be "chimes" then maybe they should have called it the "RS Wind" then!!