I learned to sail in Picos, moved up to Lasers, had a Solo for a year and recently acquired an RS Vareo, a boat which I took for its first sail recently.

I never really liked lasers finding them uncomfortable, not that fast and either boring or exciting but unstable downwind. I very much liked the Solo which is pretty, very nice to sail, comfortable and with great controls, but for sea racing in a mixed monohull fleet of mostly quicker boats it was slow and whilst stable, also boring downwind. Recovering from a capsize was a pain too. If I was a lake or river sailor I could imagine them being excellent especially in fleet racing.

I tried an RS Vareo once last season (2016) on a reasonably windy day, got the kite up a few times, capsized a few times but got the ah-ha moment and I knew I had to get one.

I immediately liked it being light, responsive, comfortable, easy to right and drain, fast and quick on to the plane, easy to gybe and with the kite up really fast. Definitely addictive.

So how was my first outing?

The conditions were ideal for a test, only 5°C / 41F but sunny with a steady easterly onshore wind of 8 – 10 knots. It was great, I was speeding along nicely even in the light wind and even managed a bit of surfing in the swell. I didn’t get the kite up on this occasion but that wasn’t the aim. Rigging and de-rigging is quick and I can see I’ll need to figure out some painter configuration to help with launches and recovery.

Next, I’ll sort the spinnaker rigging out and get the kite up and go out in increasing wind strength.