Thornbury Regatta - Report
A season record of nine cherubs travelled from all corners of the UK to attend the annual regatta at Thornbury SC.
Saturday greeted the competitors with 25+ knots of breeze and challenging launching conditions resulting in a few not making the start choosing instead to collect mud samples along the lee shoreline. Race underway was a three horse affair between Paul Croote with new crew Maff Kiddle in Auntie Dot, Phil and Sara Kirk in E-Numbers and Andy and Jill Peters in Usagi Yojimbo sporting an RS200 mainsail (surely contravening rule 7) which clearly paid off as they eventually took line honours from Auntie Dot. The Kirks suffered a broken mast putting them out of the regatta. Race 2 was eventually abandoned leaving all three to count in the series.
On Sunday the breeze built to around 18 kts by the start time and all competitors present started to beat close to the short to avoid the severn tide. While Auntie Dot stretched a bit of a lead the places behind were hotly contested between Andy and Jill Peters, Dean Ralph and Simon Jones in Eleanor, Stu Tinner and Nick Pratt in Ronin and Graham and Eddie Bridle in Riot Van. The place changing continued all race with Riot Van eventually taking second, Usagi Yojimbo third and Eleanor fourth.
Race three started similarly although with the tide slacker the fleet could use more of the Servern river and really power up for some speed. Soon the lead was contested by Auntie Dot and Riot Van with the former helping by capsizing twice on the way around, but still eventually showing superior all round speed and taking line honours.
A special mention should go to Tom Sully and crews John Maddison and Sally Harvey who borrowed Dangerous Beans for the weekend, mastering cherrubing quickly and sporting big grins on and off the water. We hope to see them again. Also returning from maternity leave were Dave and Lara Ching in the famous Shiny Beast looking good and reminding people of the speed of the beast.
Thornburys legendary hospitality was up to standard, feeding a hungry fleet on Saturday night for a mere six quid, a barrel of superb local beer and providing entertainment consisting of grown men in pink tutu’s blowing brass instruments. This gave Phil Kirk the opportunity to show his other talent of kossak dancing leaving the fleet in no doubt as to how he gets under the boom each gybe, and why Sara is always so cheerful. This regatta is surely cementing itself in the Cherub calendar and the fleet is pleased to extend its thanks to the club and recommend to anyone else they attend next year.
1st 2699 Paul Croote Maff Kiddle Chew Valley 2 1 1 4
2nd 3202 Andy Peters Jill Peters Queen Mary 1 3 5 9
3rd 3204 Graham Bridle Eddie Bridle Brightlingsea (DNF) 2 2 13
