Whaam!

(ex Team Ecocats ex Mad Man Across The Water)

Whaam history

Cherub number 2539 was first measured in 1979, and was then called ‘Mad Man Across The Water’. Built by Jarrett/Cope and first owned by David Cope, 2539 was a Hot Dog design.

Then the trail goes cold until the 1990’s.

An extensive refurbishment was carried out in south east Cornwall. A carbon floor was put in and a new Kevlar foredeck added as well as an asymmetric conversion, making it a sort of Halo Jones inside out! The bits were offcuts from a project at www.multimarine.co.uk in Millbrook, Cornwall. The project was making catamaran motorboats with the functionality of a rib, but more efficient and less prone to make wash. It was called the Ecocat - the idea being that it can be used to take people on tours of areas sensitive th the effects of wash. This was the reason for the name of the boat at that time: Team Ecocats! Will Lee saw the boat on behalf of Tris Kemp in Cornwall in 2001 (inspecting it on the beach at Cawsand) and declared it a good'un.

The boat went to Netley and was sailed very happily for a while until she was sold to Andy Lang

Andy also kept the boat at Netley, bought her as a bare hull and made it up for a single hander. Raced her solo for a year and then decided he wanted a newer boat so sold it to Iain Christie

To Draycote and a new life - and fit out. But soon Iain bought Suicide Blonde and so sold the boat to David Blight

The timber on this boat was still as solid as a rock. David Blight stripped it of any paint and left it for a few weeks in a boiler room to dry out, so he knew every inch intimately. The only rot was in the ply panels and support on the transom, so he very tentatively clamped up the rear end and took a saw to it! Daring stuff, but no problem. This gave him the opportunity to try his hand at some carbon work and the new open transom is the result – not a gantry as such but just a more interesting design. Apart from that, the only other thing he did is the Roy Lichtenstein inspired Pop Art paint job done in standard single pack yacht enamels.

The boat then acquired Norwegian Blue's old spinnaker, and sailed at the 2004 Boxing Day Challenge at Exe SC.

David kindly lent the boat to Stu Hopson, Kita Carpenter and Brad Yabsley for the 2005 nationals, and the boat came back with the wooden boat trophy!

Shortly after this, in August 2005, the story of 2539 could well have come to an end: An unscheduled meeting with a dock at Exmouth caused a bent mast, two large holes and an insurance write off.

Two lads from Chew named Francis Screech and Ed Higham bought the kit of parts and set about putting the boat back together. They did it in record time and were sailing within a couple of weeks. What an amazing team.