Well done to Phil and Carol Alderson for winning the 2023 Cherub Nationals at South Shields Yacht Club. In a home built boat!

Nationals report 2023 - South Shields

A diminished number of Cherubs gathered T’up north due to many family and personal matters occurring across the fleet. Nevertheless we set ourselves the goal of having fun, enjoying our boats and brightening the day of all who we met! South Shields is a lovely club with many lovely people.

Day 1 - Relatively sunny and warm (ish)

A very soft committee boat was not enough to entice the Harris brothers to start conventuly, Race 1 was off with them doing a port end flyer and getting up on to the foils and away from the fleet. Team Poppy took the lead with A&E failing to tack and regain their upwards momentum to the foils dropping them back to 5th, Ronin recovered from a terrible start (but as a scratch pairing, not too bad!) to pick their way through the fleet to finish third! Just behind Eleanor!

Race 2, Dave decided he wanted to be a fisherman so took up lobster potting at the pin end of the start line as the gun went. Note for Dave (helm of Eleanor) T foils are best used in the water and without a rope around them!) Back to the racing - Poppy and Zero Gravitas crash tacked on to port at the pin/Eleanor and had some work to keep up wit the fleet, Ronin was pushing on fast and ready to catch the fleet with their trousers round their ankles. Poppy, Zero Gravitas and Eleanor were found to have rather substantial suspenders. Ronin finished in fourth.

Race 3 and people were getting cocky. Zero Gravitas and Poppy were shown the individual recall flag so went back for a loop.Elanor snuck off with Ronin until Poppy came to crash the party with some excessive downwind speed.

Evening entertainment was a self cook BBQ with many interesting discussions about how the world is bananas shaped, and a few explanations of how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes

Day 2 - Grey, cold, miserable, It is the north sea!

Race 4 A&E launched and forgot to use their bungs so made a crafty detour to the beach - no ice cream - but a slightly lighter boat - Tis but a flesh wound Zero Gravitas struggled to make the pin end of the start because of the tide, after tacking and ducking half the fleet they realised that right hand race track upwind was the way to go. Having lots of practice sailing in dreich(rainy ) conditions ZG won the drag race to the correct side of the course on the first beat to take the win, Poppy was bamboozled with wet tell tails Eleanor, got caught with the rest of the fleet all stiving for the middle of the line. Poppys kite block at the top of the mast decided to depart from duty only 5 Meters off the finish line, oh how they laughed as Martyn, the crews crossed the line on the foredeck with the kite in his arms.

Race 5 Much of the same after everyone realised it was a biassed course with the tide. Made brighter with Ronin who decided they wanted to go for a swim with the kite up allowing A&e to sneak third position, poppy started the race after on their side fixing kite blocks and recovered up to 5th

Race 6: Rossa got out of the start well and had a good first leg but spinnaker problems meant they couldn't capitalise. Zero Gravitas and Poppy were too busy match racing to realise the tide had changed and going left up the beat was the correct way to go, A&e snuck through on the final lap to take a win just ahead of Poppy and ZG.

Day 2 finished with Poppy still leading and Eleanor and zero Gravitas both trailing by two points and much fun in the class AGM - ‘GET ON WITH IT’

Day 3 - A year passed: winter changed into spring, spring changed into summer, summer changed back into winter, and winter gave spring and summer a miss and went straight on into autumn…Something had really happened overnight as the north sea was not happy. Still grey and rainy

Race 7: Blimey, what was that?! Wind, waves, tide all coming from different angles Add to that rain in a new axis. It was a perfect day to be a fish. Getting off the shore through the break was a challenge for all. With a the fleet helping each other off the sand and in/through the waves

For the sailing: it is hard to describe in words how strange the conditions were. Inside the harbour, lovely at the committee boat, incredibly wavy in the second half of the course. The tide was ripping out through the entrance along with most of the rain that fell the night before. At the top it was as pokey as a stick. Pure magic and mayhem in one.

A&E, Zero Gravitas and Poppy slugging it out and Ronin occasionally showing up to keep us all faithful.

Race 8: Much the same as race 7, Zero Gravitas leading the way, A&E Trying to foil in the troughs of the waves and not over the top. Poppy just trying to get round the course with a poorly crew

Race 9: The wind had built more for the last start and with first place still up for grabs the three remaining boats all hit the start together.

The Cherub class would like to thank south shields for an amazing event in spectacular conditions, Phil and Carol alderson for winning the nationals and being great ambassadors for the class spending time with everyone and passing on lots of hard learned knowledge along the way

But not the Harris brothers of A&E as ‘he who comes third, no more, no less Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, shall write the report’

Maybe I shouldn’t watch Monty Python The Holy Grail before writing reports?