Brightlingsea
The weekend of the 29th and 30th of September was the first visit of the Cherub Class to Brightlingsea for some decades. Local boy Paul Smith put together a comprehensive programme of fry-ups and piss-ups as well as an extraordinary welcome from the club membership and committee.
The boats in attendance included Paul's own Fartpants 2638 'Prodigal Son' (formerly Utter Madness), Ben Brown and Ewan Harris with the extensively radicalised Italian Bistro 2655 'Monkey Magic', another updated Bistro, the much loved Little Fluffy Clouds with Alan and Malcolm Gardiner Dan Kemble and Luke in the Big Issue, 2685 Loco Perro, Dave Ching and Lara Gonzalez-Ruiz in the Paterson 7 2676 Shiny Beast, Will Lee and emergency stand in crew Andrew Prince in 2688 Atum Bom, but the prize goes to Ross for bringing the all-kevlar, multi nationals, worlds, and major handicap event winner Flat Stanley, not seen on the water since 1995, and still looking great.
On Saturday morning Paul organized a short briefing to explain the many tide and mud related hazards, after an excellent welcome breakfast for us all. Soon we hit the water in the moderately interesting 6-12 knots breeze. Much burning about was enjoyed, though there was the occasional ears-first dip for the unwary in the lulls as the wind was over the town.
At one pm there was a club race, and Cherubs were given their own start 6 minutes behind the general handicap. The line at Brightlingsea is an all-weather transit across the creek opposite the race box. The course was loads of knitting out in the river Colne/Blackwater union and then a return to the club line.
Off the line there was hardly any wind so kites were hoisted for the reach around the point into open water. A pokey gust meant extreme raggability aboard Atum Bom to get round the point, but Shiny had to do an emergency drop to get round. The next mark was handily indicated by a cluster of sailing boats going round it so off we all set to a gybe around Stone Point buoy. The next leg was a tight half-kiter where Cherubs past the RS400's, Merlins and Fireballs to leeward before dropping for the tight reach back up to the buoy and rounding behind the fireball. Another half kiter left only a cat and a gay-coloured 29er ahead. Up the long beat it was full on pace until a short run followed by a long two-sailer had us past the cat and then the 29er just before the finish line. (or so we thought).
Approaching the beach slowly and carefully we finally noticed that there was no cat or 29er following. A search of the horizon found them down at Stone Point again! We set off after them and after another lap with slightly less breeze we had passed the cat and were 22 seconds behind the 29er.
Evening's frolics and Sunday's activities coming.